Responsibilities of an Occupier: Military Operations vs.
Security Measures116

Destruction of Property in Occupation: Military Operations
and Absolute Necessity118

Control of Property in Occupation: Security Measures and
Rights122

Human
Rights Law and Occupied Territories123

Forced Evictions and the Right to Adequate Housing125

Right to Effective Remedies126

Israeli
Jurisprudence and Law.. 127

Exceptions Over the Rule: Israeli Courts and Destruction
of Property127

Reparations130

IX. Appendix: Statements by International Community
Condemning Destruction in Rafah131

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS133

Map 1: Gaza Overview

I. SUMMARY

These
houses should have been demolished and evacuated a long time ago Three
hundred meters of the Strip along the two sides of the border must be evacuated
Three hundred meters, no matter how many houses, period.

Over the
past four years, the Israeli military has demolished over 2,500 Palestinian
houses in the occupied Gaza Strip.[3]Nearly two-thirds of these homes were in
Rafah, a densely populated refugee camp and city at the southern end of the
Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt.Sixteen thousand people more than ten
percent of Rafah's population have lost their homes, most of them refugees,
many of whom were dispossessed for a second or third time.[4]

As satellite
images in this report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along the
Israeli-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.During regular nighttime raids and with
little or no warning, Israeli forces used armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze
blocks of homes at the edge of the camp, incrementally expanding a "buffer
zone" that is currently up to three hundred meters wide.The pattern of destruction strongly suggests
that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they
posed a specific threat, in violation of international law.In most of the cases Human Rights Watch found
the destruction was carried out in the absence of military necessity.

In May 2004,
the Israeli government approved a plan to further expand the buffer zone, and it
is currently deliberating the details of its execution.The Israeli military has recommended demolishing
all homes within three hundred meters of its positions, or about four hundred
meters from the border.Such destruction
would leave thousands more Palestinians homeless in one of the most densely
populated places on earth.Perhaps in
recognition of the plan's legal deficiencies, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
are not waiting for the government to approve the plan.Ongoing incursions continue to eat away at
Rafah's edge, gradually attaining the desired goal.

This report
documents these and other illegal demolitions.Based on extensive research in Rafah, Israel, and Egypt, it places many of the IDF's
justifications for the destruction, including smugglers' tunnels and threats to
its forces on the border, in serious doubt.The pattern of destruction, it concludes, is consistent with the goal of
having a wide and empty border area to facilitate long-term control over the
Gaza Strip.Such a goal would entail the
wholesale destruction of neighborhoods, regardless of whether the homes in them
pose a specific threat to the IDF, and would greatly exceed the IDF's security
needs.It is based on the assumption
that every Palestinian is a potential suicide bomber and every home a potential
base for attack.Such a mindset is
incompatible with two of the most fundamental principles of international
humanitarian law (IHL): the duty to distinguish combatants from civilians and
the responsibility of an Occupying Power to protect the civilian population
under its control.

This report also documents-through witness
testimony, satellite images, and photographs-the extensive
destruction from IDF incursions deep inside Rafah this past May. In total, the
IDF destroyed 298 houses, far more than in any month since the beginning of the
Palestinian uprising four years ago.The
extent and intensity of this destruction was not required by military necessity
and appears intended as retaliation for the killing of five Israeli soldiers in
Rafah on May 12, as well as a show of strength.

Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from the Gaza Strip holds
little hope of relief to the residents of Rafah.Under the plan, the IDF will maintain its
fortifications and patrols on the Rafah border indefinitely.The plan explicitly envisions the possibility
of further demolitions to widen the buffer zone on the basis of vague "security
considerations" that, as this report demonstrates, should not require a buffer
zone of the kind that currently exists, let alone further mass demolitions.

This report
recommends that the Israeli government cease its unlawful demolitions, allow
displaced Palestinians to return, pay reparations to victims, pay to repair
unlawful damage, and address the emergency needs of the displaced.The international community, which funded
some of the infrastructure destroyed by the Israeli military and continues to
pay for emergency relief, should press Israel to take these steps.In the meantime, if donors allocate funds to
rehouse victims and repair unlawful destruction, they should demand compensation
from Israel.

A Pattern in the Rubble

The Israeli
military argues that house demolitions in Rafah are necessary primarily for two
reasons: to deal with smuggling tunnels from Egypt that run underneath the
IDF-controlled border and to protect IDF forces on the border from attack.Rafah is the "gateway to terror," officials
say the entrance point for weapons used by Palestinian armed groups against
the Israeli military and civilians.Under international law, the IDF has the
right to close smuggling tunnels, to respond to attacks on its forces, and to
take preventive measures to avoid further attacks.But such measures are strictly regulated by
the provisions of international humanitarian law, which balance the interests
of the Occupying Power against those of the civilian population.

In the case
of Rafah, it is difficult to reconcile the IDF's stated rationales with the
widespread destruction that has taken place.On the contrary, the manner and pattern of destruction appears to be
consistent with the plan to clear Palestinians from the border area,
irrespective of specific threats.

Tunnels

The IDF
argues that an extensive network of smuggling tunnels from Egypt require incursions into Rafah
that result in house demolitions.According to the IDF, a typical tunnel-hunting operation requires
Israeli forces to destroy a house covering a tunnel exit as well as houses from
which Palestinian gunmen fire at them during the operation.

Based on
interviews with the IDF, Rafah residents, the Palestinian National Authority
(PNA), members of Palestinian armed groups, and independent experts on
clandestine tunnels, Human Rights Watch concludes that the IDF has consistently
exaggerated and mischaracterized the threat from smuggling tunnels to justify
the demolition of homes.There is no
dispute that tunnels exist to smuggle contraband, including small arms and
explosives used by Palestinian armed groups, into the Gaza Strip.But despite the tremendous burden that
demolitions have imposed on the civilian population, the IDF has failed to
explain why non-destructive means for detecting and neutralizing tunnels
employed in places like the Mexico-United States border and the Korean
demilitarized zone (DMZ) cannot be used along the Rafah border.Moreover, it has at times dealt with tunnels
in a puzzlingly ineffective manner that is inconsistent with the supposed
gravity of this longstanding threat.The
report makes three main points:

Shafts vs. Tunnels.Israeli
officials claim to have uncovered approximately ninety tunnels in Rafah
since 2000, giving the impression of a vast and burgeoning underground
flow of arms into Gaza.When pressed about these claims, the IDF
admitted the figure refers to tunnel entrance
shafts, some of which connect to existing tunnels and others of which
connect to nothing at all.Rather
than digging new tunnels, an IDF spokesman told Human Rights Watch,
smugglers are often trying to connect to cross-border tunnels that already
exist.This is possible in part
because, until 2003, the IDF did not seek to close the tunnels themselves,
but merely demolished the Rafah homes in which tunnel entrance shafts operative
or inoperative were found.This
tactic caused much destruction and homelessness while leaving tunnels
largely intact.Soldiers have been
venturing inside tunnels since 2003, though an IDF spokesman told Human
Rights Watch that the military does not have the technology to collapse
lateral portions of tunnels.In
response to an inquiry from Human Rights Watch, the IDF refused to specify
how many tunnels versus entrances had been discovered and destroyed.The IDF's approach namely, the use of
ineffective methods for two years, followed by unclear improvements
contrasts sharply with alarmist Israeli statements on tunnels and the flow
of arms.

Inoperative Tunnels.In at
least three cases, the IDF has destroyed houses containing inoperative
tunnels.In July 2004, residents
discovered and reported to the PNA an incomplete shaft in an empty
house.A few days later, the IDF destroyed
the house and seventeen other houses nearby, leaving 205 people homeless
as well as a factory.Human Rights
Watch's onsite assessment just after the incursion, as well as interviews
with eyewitnesses and a representative of a Palestinian armed group,
indicated that the destruction was militarily unnecessary; even in the home
with the tunnel entrance, demolition of the whole house was an excessive
response to an incomplete shaft that could have been effectively sealed
with concrete.Human Rights Watch
documented two other cases in which the IDF appears to have destroyed houses
with tunnel shafts that had already been sealed by the PNA.The IDF claims that PNA closures are
incomplete.

Alternatives to Home
Demolition.According to tunnel experts
consulted by Human Rights Watch, a number of less destructive alternatives
exist for the effective detection and destruction of smuggling
tunnels.No one method is
guaranteed to work in all situations, but different techniques can
compensate for each other's shortcomings, and overall conditions in Rafah
favor the IDF: Only four kilometers of the border run alongside Rafah, and
tunnel depth is limited by the water table approximately forty-five
meters in the camp.In this
environment, the IDF could install an array of underground seismic sensors
along the border.Known as an "underground
fence," this method has successfully detected digging activity on the
U.S.-Mexico border.Other methods,
such as electromagnetic induction and ground-penetrating radar, could be
used to detect tunnels at the point where they cross the IDF-controlled
border, and detection is more likely if the tunnels contain electrical
wires, lights, and pulley mechanisms, as the IDF claims. Once the IDF
detects tunnels underneath the border, it could dig down and neutralize
them with concrete or explosives, obviating the need for incursions into
Rafah that result in destroyed homes and sometimes loss of life.

Israel in all likelihood has access to such
sophisticated technology, either domestically or through the U.S.
government, its closest ally.But the
IDF insists it has exhausted all alternatives, and that the current tactics are
the only effective way of dealing with the tunnel threat.Despite three requests from Human Rights
Watch, the IDF declined to explain the alternative methods it has attempted to
detect tunnels and why they did not work.While some information regarding tunnels may be sensitive, the enormous
impact on the civilian population of demolitions places the burden on Israel to make
the case as to why the only way of dealing with tunnels that run underneath IDF
positions is to demolish houses deeper and deeper into the camp.

Protecting the Border

Rafah is one
of the most violent areas in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory
(OPT). Over the past four years, the IDF
and Palestinian armed groups have regularly exchanged fire at various points
along the border.What follows is a brief
description of the fighting on the border rather than a chronology of how it
unfolded.

IDF positions fire with large caliber
machine guns and tanks at civilian areas.Based on multiple visits to the area by Human Rights Watch since 2001
and interviews with local residents and foreign diplomats, aid workers, and
journalists, this shooting appears to be largely indiscriminate and in some
cases unprovoked.In July 2004, nearly
every house on Rafah's southern edge was pockmarked by heavy machine gun, tank,
and rocket fire on the side facing the border.Bullet holes were not only clustered around windows or other possible
sniper positions, but sprayed over entire sides of buildings.Human Rights Watch researchers also witnessed
indiscriminate use of heavy machine gun fire against Palestinian civilian areas
in nearby Khan Yunis, without apparent shooting by Palestinians from that area
at the time.

On a regular
basis, IDF positions and patrols on the border come under attack from
Palestinian armed groups using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.During three nights in July Human Rights Watch
researchers spent in Rafah, Palestinian small arms fire was sporadic while IDF
heavy machine guns fired long bursts into the camp.

Representatives
of Palestinian armed groups in Rafah told Human Rights Watch that the IDF-controlled
border is well-fortified and attacking it is largely in vain, especially
because a single 7.62 mm bullet in Rafah costs U.S. $7 (a figure also cited by
the IDF as evidence of their success in blocking arms).

Both the IDF
and Palestinian armed groups use tactics that place civilians at risk.Under customary international law, civilians
must be kept outside hostilities as far as possible, and they enjoy general
protection against danger arising from hostilities.Human Rights Watch documented multiple cases
where the IDF converted civilian buildings into sniper positions during
incursions and forced residents to remain with them inside.In some cases, the IDF coerced civilians to
serve as "human shields" while searching Palestinian homes, a practice strictly
prohibited by international humanitarian law.[5]By attacking the IDF from within populated areas,
Palestinian armed groups also place civilians at risk, but Human Rights Watch
found no evidence that gunmen fire from inhabited homes or force residents to
let armed groups use their homes.

Despite the
intense daily gunfire, most homes at the edge of the camp are still inhabited,
at least part of the time. Some
residents remain despite the risk, lest the IDF consider their homes abandoned
and target it for destruction.Even when
they do leave, however, absence does not constitute abandonment, especially when
indiscriminate IDF shooting forces civilians to flee.One Palestinian, living in the municipal
stadium after the IDF bulldozed two of his homes in 2001 and 2004, explained
how IDF tactics force Palestinians near the border to leave their homes. "If
[the Israelis] want to make you leave the home, they shoot the walls, they
shoot the windows," he said."Then they
can come and say 'It is empty,' and bulldoze the house."[6]

Comprehensive statistics on combatant and civilian deaths
are unavailable and there is no consensus on how many Palestinian casualties
from IDF fire are civilians.The IDF
does not appear to keep statistics of civilian deaths or injuries inflicted by
its forces. According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 393 residents of the Rafah governorate
were killed between September
29, 2000, and August
31, 2004, including ninety-eight children under age eighteen.[7]The lowest possible percentage of
civilian victims in Rafah is twenty-nine, which is the percentage of women and
children killed over the past four years.The actual figure is undoubtedly much higher because twenty-nine percent
presumes that every
adult Palestinian male killed was directly participating in hostilities.In the same period, Palestinian armed groups killed ten Israeli soldiers
in Rafah.One was killed while
patrolling the border, in February 2001; four others were killed during
incursions inside the camp.The other
five soldiers were killed on May
12, 2004, when Islamic Jihad fighters destroyed an Israeli armored
vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.[8]The IDF invoked this latter incident to
justify the further expansion of the buffer zone through wholesale demolition
of homes.As discussed below, it better
demonstrates the effects of the IDF's expansive notion of security.

In this
context, the IDF has taken steps that go far beyond what international law
allows and what the security of its forces requires.The IDF has built improved fortifications on
the border that by themselves would contribute greatly to the protection of
patrols; but these new fortifications were placed deeper inside the demolished
area, bringing them closer to the houses, and effectively creating a new
starting point for demolitions.The
IDF's expansive notion of security erodes the spirit of international
humanitarian law and is a recipe for ongoing demolitions.

The border
between the Gaza Strip and Egypt
is 12.5 kilometers long, of which four kilometers run alongside Rafah.The IDF refers to this border area as the
"Philadelphi" corridor or zone, but it is better understood as two distinct
areas: a shielded patrol corridor
(between the border and IDF fortifications) and a buffer zone (the space between IDF fortifications and the houses of
Rafah).The expansion of both of these
areas is illustrated in the satellite imagery included in this report.

Before the
uprising, the IDF maintained a patrol corridor along the border some twenty to
forty meters wide, separated from the camp in most places by a concrete wall,
approximately three meters high, topped with barbed wire.In some areas, especially the densely
populated Block O section of the camp, houses were situated within several
meters of the patrol corridor.

Beginning in
2001, as armed clashes erupted in the border area, the IDF launched nighttime
raids in Block O and other areas of Rafah, demolishing up to one or two dozen
homes in each attack and expelling all residents from the cleared area.The IDF argued that these demolitions were
necessary responses to attacks from Palestinian armed groups, as well as part
of anti-tunneling efforts.These
demolitions resulted in a de facto buffer zone between the patrol corridor and
the camp, littered with rubble and empty of Palestinians.

By late
2002, after the destruction of several hundred houses in Rafah, the IDF began
building an eight meter high metal wall along the border.This wall, now 1.6 kilometers long, faces the
parts of Rafah that used to be closest to the border.Such a structure would have greatly enhanced
the security of IDF patrols by allowing armored vehicles to patrol without
being seen by Palestinian snipers, while fortified IDF towers in the patrol
corridor and built along the wall could monitor and respond to attacks on the
wall from Rafah.Other security measures
permitted under international law, such as restricting access to areas near the
wall or taking control of property[9]
along it (i.e. seizing homes and closing them off in a reversible manner),
could have supplemented these moves.Instead of attempting any of these measures, the IDF resorted to
demolitions en masse, without warning, often in the middle of the night.

Most
importantly, the IDF built the wall inside
the demolished area, some eighty to ninety meters from the border.Such an expansion doubled the width of the
patrol corridor and was not required to safeguard the border, as the previous
twenty to forty meter-wide patrol corridor was amply wide enough for multi-lane
use by armored vehicles. The IDF's Merkava tank is 3.72 meters wide, while
Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers, used in demolition operations, are 4.58
meters wide without armor.

The
expansion of the patrol corridor brought IDF fortifications closer to the camp,
exposing them to risks subsequently invoked to justify further demolitions.According to satellite imagery taken in May
2004, some two hundred meters of demolished houses separated the metal wall
from the last rows of remaining houses.In total, some fifteen percent of central Rafah's pre-2000 built-up area
has been razed in order to make way for the expansion of both the patrol
corridor and the buffer zone.The IDF
invoked the death of five Israeli soldiers in Rafah on May 12, 2004, to demonstrate the need
for a wider buffer zone.This incident
instead illustrates the effects of Israel's inherently expansive
notion of security: the armored vehicle carrying the soldiers was conducting an
anti-tunneling operation between the metal wall and the camp, not inside the
patrol corridor.

According to
this logic, the IDF could continue to relocate its positions progressively
closer to homes and then destroy them for security purposes.This explains in part why the rate of house
demolitions in Rafah tripled in 2003 compared to the previous two years, after
the completion of the wall, even though it should have reduced the perceived
need to protect the border.Similarly,
the IDF's recommendations for further razing are based in part on the perceived
need to safeguard a proposed anti-tunneling trench in the buffer zone.While such a trench in theory could be
lawful, it cannot be invoked as a reason to further expand the buffer zone,
especially in light of the existence of less destructive methods to detect and
neutralize tunnels.

This
inherently expansive notion of "security" is incompatible with Israel's
duty as an Occupying Power to balance its own interests against those of the
civilian population.As one IDF officer
put it, "I have no doubt that the clearing actions [i.e. house demolition and
land razing] have an element of tactical value, but the question is, where do
we draw the line?According to that
logic, what prevents us from destroying Gaza?"[10]

Rampage in Rafah: May 2004

In May 2004,
Rafah witnessed a level of destruction unprecedented in the current uprising, resulting
in 298 demolished homes.After Islamic
Jihad destroyed the armored personnel carrier (APC) on May 12, the IDF launched
a two-day incursion to recover the soldiers' remains.IDF tanks and helicopters also led an assault
on Block O, reportedly killing fifteen Palestinians, including one fifteen-year-old.
Six others were identified as combatants.[11]Claiming that it came under intense fire
during the entire operation, the IDF razed eighty-eight homes in Block O and
neighboring Qishta area, including houses that had been separated from the
buffer zone by three or four rows of homes and could not have been used to fire
at the APC or the recovery teams.Towards the end of the incursion, two Israeli soldiers in Qishta were
killed by Palestinian snipers.

From May
18-24, the IDF conducted a major assault called "Operation Rainbow" that
penetrated deep into two areas of Rafah Tel al-Sultan in the northwest and
the Brazil
and Salam neighborhoods in the east reportedly leaving thirty-two Palestinian
civilians dead, including ten people under age eighteen, as well as twelve
armed men.The IDF also destroyed 166
houses.The offensive was ostensibly
aimed at searching for smuggling tunnels, killing or arresting suspects, and
eliminating "terrorist infrastructure."The IDF claimed to have discovered three smuggling tunnels during the
operation, though later admitted that one of these was an incomplete shaft and
another was outside of Rafah and not linked to any house demolitions.

In
investigating the events of May 2004 and other demolitions, Human Rights Watch
documented systematic violations of international humanitarian law and gross
human rights abuses by the Israeli military.During the major May incursions of May 18-24, the IDF destroyed houses,
roads, and large fields extensively without evidence that the destruction was
in response to absolute military needs, including in areas of Rafah far from
the border.In areas of Brazil
further from the border, where incursions were not expected, most of the residents
were inside their homes as armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozers crashed through
the walls.Bulldozers allowed residents
to flee but proceeded with the destruction before they could remove their
belongings.In some cases away from the
border, like the Rafah zoo, the destruction took place after the IDF had
secured the area, in a manner that was time-consuming, deliberate, and
comprehensive, rather than in the heat of battle.

The IDF
claims its forces came under attack from Palestinians using anti-tank weapons,
explosives, and small arms.Based on
interviews with thirty-five Rafah residents and two members of Palestinian
armed groups, information provided by the IDF, public statements by Palestinian
armed groups and the Israeli government, and after surveying the affected
areas, Human Rights Watch believes that armed Palestinian resistance to the May
18-24 operation was light, limited, and quickly overwhelmed within the initial
hours of each incursion.Both sides made
tactical choices to maximize their respective advantages: the IDF limited their
operations mostly to Brazil
and Tel al-Sultan, where they were not expected and Palestinian armed groups
laid ambushes in the densely populated heart of the original camp, where they
would be more likely to engage the IDF at close quarters.The main streets in Tel al-Sultan and Brazil are
relatively wide and arranged in grid-like patterns.The Israeli government designed them in this
way during the 1970s to facilitate the movement of its forces and limit cover for
Palestinian gunmen.As a result, throughout
the operation there was minimal direct engagement between the IDF and
Palestinian armed groups. This contrasts sharply with the fierce multi-day
battle in the densely populated heart of Jenin refugee camp in April 2002,
which resulted in the death of fifty-two Palestinians, including twenty-seven
confirmed civilians and thirteen IDF soldiers.

During the
incursions into Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, the IDF employed armored
Caterpillar D9 bulldozers in a manner that was indiscriminate and excessive,
resulting in widespread destruction of homes, roads, and agriculture that could
have been avoided:

Houses.In Brazil, Caterpillar D9
bulldozers cleared "tank paths" inside the camp by plowing through blocks
of houses as a general precaution against possible attacks with RPGs or
roadside bombs, irrespective of the specific threats that international
law requires.The IDF also used D9s
to destroy homes near suspected smuggling tunnels and in other areas on a
preventive basis, not in response to specific threats.Other house demolitions had no
discernible reason.

Road destruction.In both
Tel al-Sultan and Brazil,
the IDF used Caterpillar D9s to indiscriminately tear up roads, destroying
water and sewage networks, and creating a significant public health risk
in an already vulnerable community.In some areas, water shortages forced residents to leave their
homes in search of water, putting them at risk of being shot by IDF
snipers for breaking curfew.In
total, the IDF destroyed fifty-one percent of Rafah's roads, usually by
dragging a blade known as the "ripper" from the back of the D9 down the
middle of the road.The IDF gave
various explanations for this tactic, including the need to clear paths of
potential bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs), to sever wires
that could be used to detonate explosive devices and to prevent suicide
car attacks on Israeli forces. If the IDF was truly concerned about wires
and IEDs, it would have used a front mounted device. Instead they used rear-mounted rippers that afforded no protection for the D9
bulldozers or their drivers fromexplosive devices in the road.In addition, as a photograph in Chapter
6 taken from another incursion shows, the ripper creates a path of debris
down the middle of the road, leaving side lanes intact for use by suicide
car attacks.Tearing up paved roads
also creates loose debris that facilitates the concealment of explosives
and booby-traps.

Razing Agricultural Land.The IDF razed two large tracts of agricultural land
outside the Tel al-Sultan housing project away from the border.Such destruction after the IDF had
secured the area was disproportionate to any potential military gain and had
a harmful impact on an area where agricultural production plays an
important role.The IDF told Human
Rights Watch that military vehicles destroyed agricultural land because
they had to avoid booby-traps on roads, but this does not explain why
bulldozers spent more than two days systematically destroying two large
fields of greenhouses.

While
research focused on the extensive destruction in the Rafah camp, Human Rights
Watch also documented other abuses during the incursions into Tel al-Sultan and
Brazil,
including unlawful killings of civilians and IDF troops coercing civilians to
serve as "human shields."Most
egregiously, on March 19, an Israeli tank and helicopter opened fire on a
demonstration, killing nine, including three children under age eighteen.The IDF did not claim that its troops had
come under fire, only that gunmen were in the crowd; eyewitness accounts and
video evidence contradict this.In
response to an inquiry from Human Rights Watch, the IDF said that one those
killed had been listed in its records as a "Hamas activist" but did not
substantiate or even reaffirm the claim that he had been armed at the time.

Doctrines of Destruction

As the
Occupying Power in the Gaza Strip, the IDF has two roles: an administrator with
police and security powers, and a potential belligerent who may engage in
fighting.But at all times it is responsible for protecting the civilian population,
in accordance with both international humanitarian law (the laws of armed
conflict) and human rights law.

International
humanitarian law permits an occupier to take the drastic step of destroying
property only when "rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."[12]According to the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC), military operations are "movements, manuvres and actions
of any sort, carried out by the armed forces with a view to combat."[13]A belligerent occupation cannot be considered
a "military operation" in itself, nor can every activity conducted by the
Occupying Power be considered a military operation; rather, a military
operation must have some concrete link to actual or anticipated fighting.Destroying property to improve the general
security of the occupier or as a broad precaution against hypothetical threats
is prohibited.As the ICRC stated during
the May incursions in Rafah, "the destruction of property as a general security
measure is prohibited."[14]Even during military operations,
indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian objects are not
allowed.Civilian property may not be
destroyed unless it is making an effective contribution to military action and
its destruction offers a definite military advantage.In cases in which the targeted object is
normally dedicated to a civilian purpose, such as a house, the presumption under
the law is that it is not a legitimate target.

Outside of
combat, the Occupying Power may take measures to enhance its security.Among other things, it can temporarily take
control of property to prevent its hostile use, build fortifications, and
prohibit access to certain areas, but these measures must be compatible with a
fuller range of human rights protections, including the right to compensation
for properties seized.Although it has
denied the applicability of international human rights instruments to
Palestinians in the OPT, Israel
is widely considered to be bound by these laws.International human rights law obliges Israel
to provide effective judicial remedies for victims of forced eviction and to
ensure adequate housing for Palestinians

The IDF's
unlawful policy of destruction is consistent with public statements by Israeli
officials, the IDF's disturbingly permissive interpretation of international
law, and its own admission that destruction has been excessive:

The IDF has publicly admitted destroying
houses to "weaken the fear of tunnels"[15]
or in response to other hypothetical risks.This doctrine conflates the legal
requirement of absolute military necessity a strict standard requiring
that any property destruction must be connected to combat with the much
broader notion of security.This
conflation is consistent with the expressed desire of senior IDF officers,
from Sharon's
days as head of the IDF Southern Command in the early 1970s[16]
through Yom-Tov Samiya's statements quoted at this summary's beginning, to
raze all homes near the border.

The IDF's military manual
misinterprets international law to permit destruction even when it
violates the laws of armed conflict, a standard that is far more
permissive than that of other major militaries.According to the IDF manual, "The Hague
Conventions state that unnecessary destruction of enemy property is
forbidden. The only restriction is to refrain from destroying property
senselessly, where there is no military justification, for the sheer sake
of vandalism."[17]The IDF manual does not mention that
military necessity is commonly understood among major militaries to
exclude actions that are expressly prohibited by the rules of IHL, since
military necessity was incorporated into the formulation of those rules.[18]The manual also does not require that
property destruction be absolutely necessary or that it conform to
fundamental principles of IHL, such as the duty to refrain from
indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.The IDF manual is far more permissive
than, for example, the U.S.
and Canadian military manuals, which require some connection between
destruction and the overcoming of enemy forces.[19]

Senior IDF officers have
admitted that not all property destruction is authorized or justified in
such operations.After the IDF
destroyed approximately sixty houses in Block O in January 2002,
Major-General Doron Almog, then head of the Southern Command, announced
that some of the houses had been inadvertently destroyed due to
"navigational errors."[20]Brigadier-General Dov Zadka told the
press on one occasion that he had approved a particular scope of
"clearing," only to find that troops had exceeded the approved
amount."You approve the removal of
thirty trees, and the next day you see that they removed sixty trees," he
said.[21]Even if these were mistakes,
compensation and/or reparation should be made in such cases.Despite this, the IDF has apparently not
investigated any cases of improper or unlawful house demolitions.

Rafah is not
the only place where the IDF has extensively destroyed property in the name of
security.Throughout the Gaza Strip,
Israeli forces have created buffer zones near IDF bases, illegal settlements,
and Israeli-only bypass roads by systematically leveling houses and
agricultural fields.[22]

For decades,
the IDF has demolished homes for various reasons.Most prominent have been punitive or
"deterrent" demolitions aimed at the family homes of Palestinians engaged or
suspected of engaging in armed activities.Such collective punishments are strictly forbidden by international
humanitarian law.[23]Israeli authorities have also destroyed
Palestinian houses in the West Bank and Israel ostensibly for violating
building code regulations.These
demolitions are not the focus of this report but have been extensively
addressed elsewhere.[24]

Nowhere to Turn

Palestinians
in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritories (OPT) have nowhere to turn
in Israel
for legal protection against unlawful demolitions and forced evictions.The IDF, the Supreme Court, and the Knesset
have all played a role in denying effective remedies.

An IDF
spokesman and an IDF legal officer told Human Rights Watch that they had no
knowledge of any investigations into cases of unlawful or improper house
demolition,[25]
even though the IDF military police had opened 173 investigations of damage to
property in the OPT as of May 2004 (thirty-four percent of the total number of
investigations opened in the OPT).[26]The Israeli Supreme Court has consistently
sanctioned IDF policies that violate international law, including house
demolitions aimed at collectively punishing families of militants and those
destroyed to make way for the illegal "separation barrier" under construction
inside the occupied West Bank.[27]And under Israeli law, compensation is ruled
out in cases of "combat activity," which the Knesset amended in 2002 with an
expansive definition that includes virtually every IDF action in the OPT.

The
international community has forcefully condemned unlawful destruction in Rafah
and elsewhere in the OPT.But donors who
have invested heavily in Gaza,
including in infrastructure and facilities destroyed by the IDF, have found
themselves entangled in a dilemma.On
the one hand, the knowledge that international aid money will pay to
reconstruct what has been destroyed is likely to fuel the IDF's sense of
impunity for unlawful destruction.On
the other hand, donors know that restricting or reducing aid would harm
Palestinian victims.Under international
law, Israel
is responsible for unlawful damage caused by its forces and cannot misuse aid
meant for Palestinians to evade its own obligations.As such, Human Rights Watch recommends that
the international community press Israel to either pay reparations to
victims or to compensate donors directly for any funds spent on repairing
unlawful destruction.

Methodology

A Human
Rights Watch team of three researchers spent a combined total of one month in
the Gaza Strip, Israel, and Egypt
to research this report.The team
interviewed over eighty individuals, including thirty-five residents of Rafah
who were victims of and/or eyewitnesses to house demolitions or other abuses,
corroborating and cross-checking their accounts.Researchers also spoke to first-hand
participants in and observers of events in Rafah, including representatives of
two Palestinian armed groups, Palestinian National Authority security
personnel, and municipal officials.Representatives of international relief organizations and local human
rights groups in GazaCity also provided
information.

In Israel,
the researchers met with three representatives of the IDF and an official from
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as foreign diplomats, military
specialists, local and international journalists, and local human rights
organizations.The IDF shared
information about its operational and legal doctrines, as well as its
unclassified assessments of the Rafah border situation.In Egypt, researchers met with
officials from the Egyptian Interior Ministry, local activists, and
journalists.The research also included
analysis of public statements by Israeli government entities and Palestinian
armed groups.

Human Rights
Watch also conducted on-site examination of physical evidence in Rafah,
including ballistics, especially in cases of recent demolitions.In all cases, researchers recorded the
precise Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of locations visited,
including those of demolished houses, using handheld GPS devices.The geospatial data has been incorporated
into the maps and satellite images in this report.Researchers took hundreds of digital
photographs, some of them reproduced in this report, and were given access to
extensive photographs and video taken by local journalists and human rights
organizations during the May 2004 incursions.

In analyzing
the broader patterns of destruction, Human Rights Watch was aided by satellite
imagery of Rafah taken since 2000 and provided by Space Imaging North America,
Space Imaging Eurasia, Space Imaging Middle East, and DigitalGlobe.Human Rights Watch also drew on detailed
statistical data on house demolitions compiled by UNRWA and the Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).

II. RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Israel

Cease all property destruction
that is not absolutely necessary to the conduct of hostilities, including
all punitive ("deterrent") destruction.Prohibit attacks against property on the basis of mere suspicion or
hypothetical risk rather than absolute military necessity.

Repudiate plans to widen the
border ("Philadelphi") buffer zone, including in the event of
"disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.

Allow general return of
residents to demolished areas, including in de facto buffer zones.Ensure that any restrictions on return
are proportionate in impact and duration, regularly re-evaluated and
implemented only when and to the extent necessary, open to challenge
before an impartial court, and accompanied by provisions for adequate
housing.

Ensure that any use of armed
force, especially along the Rafah border or around other Israeli bases, is
proportionate and discriminate.Ensure that open fire regulations issued to members of the Israel
Defense Force in border fortifications comply with the U.N. Basic
Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials
and the U.N. Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials.

Investigate and hold accountable
all members of the IDF and their superiors found to have destroyed, or
tolerated the destructions of, homes or property in violation of
international humanitarian law.

Pay reparations and full
compensation to owners of unlawfully demolished homes.If funds for repairing unlawful damage
caused by the IDF are allocated by international donors, compensate donors
directly.

Ensure that any control of
property for security reasons is fully consistent with both international
human rights standards and international humanitarian law.Control of property should be used only
when and to the extent necessary, should not amount to confiscation, and
should be open to challenge before an impartial court.

Maintain accurate statistics on
property damaged, make that information publicly accessible in a timely
fashion, and require that such reporting be part of the operational
debrief following any military operation.Such record keeping should also include the precise justification
for the demolition, whether it was conducted in the course of combat
activities, and the specific incidents that led to that demolition or
property destruction.

Repeal the 2002 amendment to the
Torts (State Liability) Law to allow individuals whose property has been
wrongfully damaged in IDF operations to claim compensation.

Cease immediately the practice
of using lethal force to enforce mass house arrest or curfew.

Cease immediately the practice
of indiscriminately destroying roads, as well as associated destruction of
infrastructure.

Cease immediately the coerced
use of civilians to assist IDF military operations.

To the maximum extent feasible,
avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated
areas.Take all necessary
precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and
civilian objects under IDF control against the dangers resulting from
military operations.

Allow immediate access to, and
cooperate fully with, the human rights special mechanisms of the United
Nations as well as other independent international investigators, to
investigate allegations of human rights violations since the beginning of
the uprising on September
29, 2000.

Explain why the IDF is not using
less destructive methods of neutralizing tunnels.

To the Palestinian
National Authority

Instruct the law enforcement
agencies of the PNA to take all possible steps, in accordance with
internationally accepted human rights norms, to identify and bring to
justice anyone who incites, plans, assists, or attempts to carry out
attacks against civilians.

Take all possible steps to
restrict the flow of arms used in attacks against civilians.

Map accurately and
comprehensively the exact location, nature, and value of properties and
agricultural land destroyed by the IDF.

To Palestinian armed
groups in Rafah

Cease deliberate attacks against
civilians and civilian targets.

Cease use of inherently
indiscriminate weapons.These
include rockets that cannot be aimed and victim-activated explosive
devices such as booby-traps.

To the maximum extent feasible,
avoid launching attacks from areas populated by civilians or locating
military objectives within or near densely populated areas.Take all necessary precautions to
protect the civilian population control against the dangers resulting from
armed activities.

To the International
Community

Demand that the Government of
Israel and the PNA implement the above recommendations.

Insist that Israel continue to abide by
its responsibilities as an Occupying Power under international
humanitarian law if the partial redeployment envisioned by the
"disengagement" plan is implemented.

Monitor carefully damage to
donor-funded property, projects, or infrastructure in Gaza, and ensure that compensation is
paid by Israeli authorities for losses or damage caused in contravention
of international law.

Insist that Israel compensate donor
governments for funds spent on repairing unlawful destruction by the IDF.

Fully support programs aimed at
ensuring the right to adequate housing of displaced Palestinians.

Support the return of
Palestinians displaced by unlawful demolitions.

High Contracting Parties to the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 should take immediate action, individually and
jointly, to ensure respect for the provisions of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, including prohibitions on unlawful destruction and collective
punishment.

Provide technical and material
support to strengthen the investigative capacity of the PNA's law
enforcement agencies including, if necessary and appropriate, through the
temporary secondment of suitably qualified police investigators to work
alongside Palestinian officers and to assist them in pursuing and bringing
to justice those responsible for attacks against civilians.

To the Government of
the United States

Demand that the Government of
Israel and the PNA take immediate steps to implement the above
recommendations in both private and public communications.

Restrict Israel's use of
Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers, Apache and Cobra helicopter gunships,
and other U.S.-origin weapons systems that are used in the commission of
systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Inform the Government of Israel
that continued U.S. military assistance requires that the government take
clear and measurable steps to halt its security forces' serious and
systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as documented in this and previous Human
Rights Watch reports.[28]These steps should include conducting
transparent and impartial investigations into allegations of serious and
systematic violations, making the results public, and holding accountable
persons found responsible.

Inform the PNA that any security
assistance from the U.S.
requires clear and measurable steps to halt within its power to halt
serious and systematic violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip by its security forces and by Palestinian armed groups, as
documented in previous Human Rights Watch reports.[29]

Ensure that enforcement of human
rights and humanitarian law protections are not made subordinate to the
outcomes of direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict.Agreements should be consistent with
fundamental human rights and humanitarian norms.

To the Member States of
the European Union

Demand that the Government of
Israel and the PNA take immediate steps to implement the above
recommendations in both private and public communications.

Consistent with the August 11
declaration of European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid
Poul Nielson, make clear to Israel that emergency funds for reconstruction
in the OPT do not absolve Israel of its responsibilities as an Occupying
Power under international humanitarian law.

Develop and make public
benchmarks for compliance by the government of Israel
with international human rights and international law commitments as
embedded in Article 2 of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement
between the E.U. and its member states and Israel.

Implement the European Code of
Conduct on Arms Exports and restrict transfer to Israel of weapons found to be used in the
commission of serious and systematic violations of international human
rights and humanitarian law in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.

Inform the PNA that any security
assistance from the E.U. requires clear and measurable steps to halt
within its power to halt serious and systematic violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip by its security forces and by Palestinian
armed groups, as documented in previous Human Rights Watch reports.

Ensure that enforcement of human
rights and humanitarian law protections are not made subordinate to the
outcomes of direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict.

To Caterpillar Inc.

Suspend sales of D9 bulldozers,
parts, or maintenance services to the IDF pending the implementation of
the above recommendations.

Seek to ensure that
Caterpillar's goods and services will not be used to abuse human rights,
in accordance with the U.N. Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational
Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.

III. BACKGROUND

The Gaza
Strip is a wisp of land southwest of Israel
along the Mediterranean Sea.Forty-five kilometers long and ranging from
five to twelve kilometers wide, it is home to some 1.2 million Palestinians,
making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.Approximately seventy-eight percent of the
Palestinian population consists of refugees, displaced in 1948 and 1949 from
what is now Israel,
and their descendants.

The Gaza Strip
and West Bank were the two areas of the British mandate of Palestine
that did not become part of the new state of Israel as a result of the 1948
Arab-Israeli war.Instead, Gaza came under Egyptian control while Jordan seized the West Bank.Israel
briefly took Gaza and the Sinai peninsula during
the Suez Crisis in 1956, but returned them to Egypt under international
pressure.The 1967 War, however, left Israel in control of Gaza,
the West Bank, the Sinai, and the Golan heights of Syria.In 1982, Israel
returned the Sinai to Egypt
as part of the Camp David Peace Treaty.The U.N. refers to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory.

Under
international law, Gaza, the West
Bank, and the Golan are occupied territories, which places their
populations under the protection of the Fourth Geneva Convention.Israel has long disputed the
applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the OPT, although it has
promised to voluntarily abide by its humanitarian provisions.The rest of the international community has
consistently affirmed the applicability of the Convention to the OPT and Israel's
responsibilities as an Occupying Power under the Convention.[30]

Israel has continually failed to fulfill
its obligations under international law as an Occupying Power.It has built, and continues to build,
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
reserved exclusively for Jews.Such
settlements in occupied territory are illegal under international law; they
violate the prohibitions of the transfer of civilians to an occupied territory[31]
and the creation of permanent changes that are not for the benefit of the
occupied population.After World War II,
the drafters of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically intended to prevent
states from colonizing territories they occupied.[32]

According to
the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, approximately forty percent of Gaza's territory is currently under direct
Israeli military control, most of it inaccessible to Palestinians.[33]These areas include some twenty Israeli
settlements, home to 7,500 settlers, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bases, and
exclusive by-pass roads linking these areas to each other and to Israel.[34]Areas along the Egyptian border in the south
and the boundary with Israel
in the north and east are also under direct Israeli military control.Israel controls all movement into
and out of the Gaza Strip.

The rest of Gaza is administered by
the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), headed by Yasser Arafat, as dictated
by the Oslo Accords of 1994-1995. The
PNA is not a sovereign state but a self-rule administration with policing
powers and is subordinate to Israel
in both law and practice.[35]Under the Oslo Accords, Israel retains
overall security authority throughout the OPT for external defense and can take
"all necessary" steps to ensure the security of both Israel and the
settlements, including by taking action in areas directly administered by the
PNA.[36]Agreements between an Occupying Power and
local authorities cannot be used to deprive civilians of their protections
under international humanitarian law.[37]

Although the
PNA cannot ratify international human rights instruments, it has signaled its
desire to adhere to human rights standards.Human Rights Watch considers the PNA to be bound to international human
rights standards to the extent of its powers, including obligations to prevent
attacks against civilians from areas under its control and to respect the human
rights of individuals in its custody.The PNA has continually failed to fulfill these obligations.[38]

The PNA has
no military but has several security forces, from regular police to
intelligence services.There are also a
number of Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip which are outside of the
PNA's authority and sometimes in adversarial relationships with it.Armed groups active in Gaza include the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a
militant offshoot of Arafat's Fatah party, and the military wings of Hamas,
Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine.In their fight
against the occupation, all of these groups attack both civilian and military
targets.Targeting civilians or carrying
out indiscriminate attacks against them violates international humanitarian
law, and Human Rights Watch has documented and condemned the practice by
Palestinian armed groups.[39]

International
organizations and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are also involved
in all aspects of Gaza
life.Most important is the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East, whose mandate includes the provision of social services such as health
care and education to Palestinian refugees both inside and outside officially
recognized refugee camps.UNRWA also
provides emergency relief.The agency's
role in providing services in the Gaza Strip rivals that of the PNA, as eighty
percent of Gaza's
population consists of refugees.Palestinian NGOs are also very active in the fields of health care,
education, and human rights.

The Uprising in Gaza: From Closure to "Disengagement"

Over the
past four years, Israel
has faced an armed uprising throughout the OPT, including attacks on both its
military and civilians.In the Gaza
Strip, the government has responded with a broad strategy of isolating the
Palestinian population from Israel,
strictly controlling the movement of Palestinians, while attempting to retain
overall control over the territory.As
explained below, the so-called "Gaza
disengagement plan" is a continuation of this process.

The fighting
has taken a heavy toll in the Gaza Strip, where patterns of fatalities differ
considerably from the uprising as a whole.Since 2000, roughly three times as many Palestinians have been killed as
Israelis in total; within Gaza,
however, the ratio is closer to ten to one.According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 1,642
Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip between September 29, 2000, and
August 31, 2004, including 360 children under the age of eighteen.[40]As of September 24, 113 Israelis (eighty-five soldiers or armed guards
and twenty-eight civilians) had been killed by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,
while fifteen civilians within Israel
proper had been killed by attacks originating from the Gaza Strip.[41]And while members of security forces account
for approximately one-third of all Israeli deaths in the uprising,[42]the eighty-two soldiers and armed
guards killed in the Gaza Strip represent seventy-five percent of Israeli
fatalities there.

The primary
Israeli method for dealing with the uprising has been the tightening of
"closure" policies that date back to the early 1990s.[43]"Closure" is a broad term encompassing many
different restrictions on freedom of movement, from preventing international
travel to placing checkpoints on roads between neighboring villages to imposing
twenty-four hour curfews that amount to mass house arrest.Closure policies in and around the Gaza Strip
are far more hermetic than those in the much larger West Bank; they have also
been more pervasive than overtly violent policies such as bombardment,
assassination of militants and political leaders, and property destruction.

External
closure is guaranteed by a fence patrolled by the IDF that surrounds the Gaza
Strip, making illegal entry into Israel almost impossible.Still, two suicide attacks inside Israel during the uprising have originated from
the Gaza Strip; one was carried out by a U.K. citizen, the other by a
Palestinian smuggled out in a shipping container.As Palestinian militants continue their
attacks, the Israeli government has made Gaza's
borders almost impossible to cross, except for settlers who use the high-speed
bypass roads to their segregated areas.The external closure of the strip, begun in the early 1990s but drastically
tightened since 2000, has effectively cut off what had become since the
beginning of the occupation in 1967 a major source of employment for Gazans.

There are
only two crossing points into the Gaza Strip open to ordinary
Palestinians.The Erez crossing into Israel
is the north has been closed since the outbreak of clashes except to a handful
of workers and travelers, as well as foreigners.The Rafah crossing with Egypt, used by larger numbers of
people, is frequently closed or subject to long, unexplained delays.Israeli authorities have imposed other
restrictions, including a de facto travel ban on Palestinian males aged sixteen
to thirty-five in effect since April 2004.Imports to and exports from Gaza, all
through Israel,
are strictly controlled, and the commercial checkpoint at Karni where goods
are transported directly from one truck to another without Palestinians being
able to cross is sometimes inexplicably closed.

Controls on
movement within the Gaza Strip, known as "internal closure," have also
increased, mostly for the security of the settlements.The IDF has closed all but a handful of main
internal roads, leaving only one route between the northern and southern halves
of the Gaza Strip.The Abu Holi and
Matahen checkpoints in the middle of the Gaza Strip, for example, effectively
cut the territory in two, severely restricting the movement of people and
goods, as well as access to health care.

According to
all available indicators, the Palestinian economy has been in steep decline
since the uprising began.According to
the World Bank, "the proximate cause of the Palestinian economic crisis is
closure."[44]In Gaza,
the poverty rate between 1999 and 2003 jumped from thirty-two to sixty-four
percent.Unemployment went from
seventeen to twenty-nine percent.[45]Average personal incomes have declined by
more than a third since September 2000, and nearly one half of Palestinians
live below the poverty line.[46]

At the same
time, food insecurity rates have jumped.According to the World Food Programme (WFP), "poor households are
resorting to negative coping strategies, such as selling assets, accruing debt,
reducing the quantity and number of meals and cutting out on expensive foods
such as meat, milk and dairy products."Food insecurity rates have almost doubled in the past year, reaching
sixty-six percent, the highest in the Gaza Strip.[47]In Rafah, 89.6 percent of the population
receives some food aid on a regular basis.[48]As of July 2004, the WFP gave families in Gaza two thousand metric tons
of food every month.[49]

Local and
international organizations report growing problems with physical and mental
health linked to violence, overcrowding, and widespread poverty in the Gaza
Strip.After years of de-development and
forced dependency on Israeli hospitals, Gaza
health facilities are severely under-equipped.Hospitals suffer regular interruptions in access to clean water,
electricity, and basic medical supplies that negatively affect clinical
services, sanitation, and the prevalence of infectious disease.Access to hospitals by patients is also
greatly diminished by severe restrictions on freedom of movement.[50]

A family from the Brazil
neighborhood still lives in a tent two months after Operation Rainbow. 2004 Fred Abrahams/Human
Rights Watch

The violence
and destruction in Gaza
have had a particularly negative impact on children.According to UNICEF, "the decline in the
well-being and quality of life of Palestinian children in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory (OPT) over the
past two years has been rapid and profound."[51]Regarding Gaza, the psycho-social impact on children
manifests itself in behavioral problems in schools and homes, as well as
growing nutritional needs.[52]According to CARE, 17.5 percent of children
in Gaza are
malnourished.Among children between the
ages of six months and five years, over thirteen percent in Gaza have moderate to severe acute
malnutrition, compared to roughly two percent in a normally nourished
population.[53]

In 2004,
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon introduced a "disengagement" plan to remove
all settlements from the Gaza Strip, as well as four settlements in the West Bank, by 2005.The Israeli cabinet approved the plan on June 6, 2004, with the understanding that Israel would accordingly expand its major
settlements blocs in the West Bank.[54]

Even if the
"disengagement" plan is implemented, Israel will continue to be an
Occupying Power under international law and bound by the provisions of the
Fourth Geneva Convention because it will retain effective control over the
territory and over crucial aspects of civilian life.Israel will not be withdrawing and
handing power over to a sovereign authority indeed, the word "withdrawal"
does not appear in the document at all.Instead, it will dismantle settlements and maintain military forces on
the southern border of the Gaza Strip while repositioning others just outside the
territory.According to press reports,
the headquarters of the IDF's Gaza Division will not be disbanded, but simply
relocated to a base ten kilometers east of the Gaza Strip.[55]The IDF will retain control over Gaza's borders, coastline, and airspace, and will reserve
the right to enter Gaza
at will.[56]

Under
international law, the test for determining if an occupation exists is effective
control by a hostile army, not formal declarations or organizational
implementation.How the occupying power
organizes itself in order to exercise its attributes is irrelevant to the fact
of the occupation itself.

The Israeli
military has made clear that, even after "disengagement," it will retain
overall security authority over Gaza
and enter the territory when it wishes."Even if we are not deployed in the Gaza Strip, we will have to continue
making sure there is no terrorism there," IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon told
Israeli Television on May
21, 2004."If terrorism
continues here, we will have to continue entering Al-Zaytun [district in Gaza
City] and Rafah and Khan Yunis, even in a situation in which we are not
[permanently] deployed inside the Gaza Strip."[57]

According to
the Hague Regulations, "A territory is considered occupied when it is actually
placed under the authority of the hostile army.The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has
been established and can be exercised."[58]International jurisprudence has clarified
that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier
of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to
reassert direct control at will.The
U.S. Military Tribunal at Nrnberg,
Germany dealt
with this question in the "Hostages" case:

While it
is true that the partisans [armed opposition groups in Yugoslavia and Greece]
were able to control sections of these countries at various times, it is established
that the Germans could at any time they desired assume physical control of any
part of the country. The control of the resistance forces was temporary only
and not such as would deprive the German Armed Forces of its status of an
occupant.[59]

Israel will retain overwhelming power over Gaza's economy due to ongoing control of the
territory's borders.A World Bank study
on the effects of the "disengagement" plan on the Palestinian economy
determined that, while "disengagement" would ease mobility restrictions inside Gaza, the plan would have
little positive effect unless accompanied by an easing of the closure
regime.If accompanied by a sealing of
the borders to labor and trade, the report said, the plan "would create worse
hardship than is seen today."[60]The Gaza Strip will continue to use Israeli
currency, the PNA will still be dependent on customs duties collected at border
crossings by Israeli authorities, and the territory will still rely on Israeli
telecommunications, electricity, water, and sewage networks.[61]

The removal
of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip is a salutary step that would help
bring Israel
closer into line with its obligations under international law.It could also potentially improve the human
rights situation by obviating abusive measures taken to secure the
settlements.But it does not change the
nature Israel's
obligations as an Occupying Power.

Map 2: Rafah Features

Rafah

Rafah is a
remote and dusty city and refugee camp of sprawling concrete homes in the
southernmost point of the Gaza Strip.According to the RafahMunicipality, the total
population of the area is 145,000.Eighty-four percent of these people are refugees.[62]Rafah is the poorest and one of the most
devastated areas of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.The movement of Rafah residents is often
restricted with closure of the Abu Holi/Matahen checkpoints, which cut the city
from the northern half of the Gaza
strip, sometimes for days without explanation.The Mediterranean Sea is less than ten kilometers away, but access is
blocked by the Gush Katif settlement bloc that runs along the coast, on top of Gaza's best water sources.

Rafah has
three overlapping areas.The town
is the original part of Rafah that existed before 1948; many neighborhoods with
family names (Qishta, Sha'er) are named for lands owned by original Rafah
residents.The camp was
established after 1948 to accommodate forty-one thousand refugees from what is
now Israel,
and is divided into alphabetical blocks (Block O, Block P, etc.).Finally, there are two Israeli-designed housing
projects, Tel al-Sultan and Brazil.

During the
first decades of the occupation, the Israeli government attempted to "thin out"
the Gaza
refugee camps by designing housing projects outside major camp areas.After the mass house demolitions throughout
the Gaza camps in 1971 (see below), the Israeli government built a number of
housing projects to "resettle"[63]
displaced persons, including two near Rafah: Brazil (to the south of the camp)
and Canada (in what was then Israeli-occupied Sinai).Both were located on sites used by UN
peacekeepers from those countries between 1956 and 1967.Under the terms of the 1979 Camp David peace
treaty, the residents of Canada
were to be repatriated to the Gaza Strip, though the process is yet to be
completed twenty years later.[64]A "new" Canada
housing project was later built on the Gaza
side of the border in an area called Tel al-Sultan.

The extended
family is still the main social unit in Rafah, and is key to understanding housing
patterns.As with other refugee camps in
Gaza,
population density is extremely high, with many people crowded into small
living spaces.Extended families often
own clusters of houses; typically, there is a small house from earlier days in
the camp, often with nothing more than an asbestos roof.As sons start their own families, they build
new homes nearby.In many cases,
families build multi-story houses, with each son starting his own family on a
different floor.

The border
area with Egypt
is known to Israelis as the "Philadelphi" corridor, named after the IDF
designation for the patrol road that runs along the border.Because Rafah and the Sinai were ruled
together from 1948 until 1982 (by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, by Israel in 1956
and from 1967 to 1982), the international border delineated by the Camp David
peace treaty bisected the town between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, leaving
families separated and houses within meters of the border.

The 1994
Gaza-Jericho agreement between Israel
and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) delineated a Military
Installation Area (or "pink zone," referring to its color on the map appended
to the agreement), approximately one hundred meters wide along the border,
where the IDF has maintained direct authority.[65]Israeli officials have at times argued that
the IDF is not an Occupying Power in the Pink Zone, implying that they have
more latitude to destroy property there.In explaining a major demolition operation in January 2002, for example,
Major-General Doron Almog, head of the IDF Southern Command, told journalists:

In
general, it is important to note that the Pink Area, as it was defined in the
agreement, is not actualized and there are still Palestinian houses belonging
to the refugee camp that are very close to the Philadelphi route which is also
a completely Israeli security controlled area. The area by definition is not
an occupied area and Israel
has the right to operate [there].[66]

The Oslo
Accords, which set the framework for the Gaza-Jericho agreement, were
transitional agreements that left the final status of the West Bank and Gaza open to further negotiations; as such, they did not
change Israel's
status as the Occupying Power.The IDF
does not have a freer hand to demolish Palestinian houses simply because they
are inside the pink zone.Under
international law the rights of protected persons cannot be affected by special
agreements with local authorities as long as the territory remains occupied.[67]

Mass Demolition: Security Rationales, Demographic
Subtexts

While Israel's punitive and administrative house
demolition policies have targeted individual homes, Israel has also in the past
undertaken widespread destruction of neighborhoods, camps, and villages for
putative security or military purposes.The apparent rationales for much of the destruction in Rafah since 2000
namely, the need for "clear" borders and, to a lesser extent, to facilitate
maneuverability of forces in densely populated areas are not new.Such demolitions have also been linked to
demographic changes.

During the
1948 Arab-Israeli war, the Haganah (the pre-state Zionist military) issued
orders to clear all Arab villages within five kilometers of the Lebanese border
after a local cease-fire had begun.As
part of this policy, the Haganah depopulated and later destroyed a dozen border
villages in the north in late 1948 and early 1949, pushing the inhabitants
either across the border or to other areas of what became Israel.According to Israeli historian Benny Morris:

the political
desire to have as few Arabs as possible in the Jewish State and the need for
empty villages to house new immigrants meshed with the strategic desire to
achieve 'Arab-clear' frontiers and secure internal lines of communication.It was the IDF that set the policy in motion,
with the civil and political authorities often giving approval after the fact.[68]

Between 1948
and 1950, Israeli forces ejected between thirty and forty thousand Palestinians
beyond the boundaries of the state in various "border-clearing" operations and
subsequent sweeps aimed at returnees.[69]

Unlike in
1948, population displacement and property destruction after the 1967 war was
concentrated mostly in border areas: along the boundary that had separated the
West Bank from Israel (known
as the Green Line) and near the external borders of the West
Bank.The IDF razed the
villages of Beit Nuba, 'Imwas, and Yalu, located near the strategic Latrun
salient northwest of Jerusalem, in June 1967;
later, a recreational area called "CanadaPark" was built in their
place.The same month, the IDF
demolished the Green Line villages of Beit 'Awa and Beit Marsam near Hebron.[70]From June 9-18, the IDF destroyed 850 of the
2,000 dwellings[71]
in the town of Qalqiliya,
located near the Green Line; only the intervention of a group of Israeli
intellectuals saved the rest.[72]

Equally
important to Israel was the JordanValley,
on the external border of the West Bank.While up to a quarter of the population of
the West Bank left after the war, the JordanValley's
population fell by eighty-eight percent, to 10,778.In subsequent years, the population grew to
some twenty thousand.[73]The bulk of those who fled across the river
to Jordan
were fifty thousand refugees living in three large camps in the valley 'Ein
al-Sultan, Nu'aymah, and 'Aqbat Jabir.According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the IDF
bulldozed the JordanValley communities of
Jiftlik, Ajarish, and Nuseirat in late 1967.[74]Israel's
first settlements in the OPT were also in the JordanValley, underlining the importance
given by Israel
to control over the external borders of occupied territories.

-

The IDF destoyed
this Block J house, residents unknown, in May 2004.

2004 Fred
Abrahams

The Gaza
Strip has been the major site of mass demolitions for the stated purpose of
enhancing the mobility of military vehicles in urban areas; such security
considerations also dovetailed with demographic ones.General Ariel Sharon, head of the IDF
Southern Command after the 1967 war, believed the Palestinian refugee "problem"
could be solved by reducing or eliminating the refugee camps.[75]In November 1969, the IDF described to UNRWA
plans "to improve the water and electricity supply and to widen roads in
refugee camps, noting that some houses would have to be removed."UNRWA demurred, citing the need for
permission from the U.N. General Assembly.[76]

The IDF
eventually went ahead without UNRWA's cooperation.In the summer of 1971, the IDF destroyed
approximately two thousand houses in the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip,
including Rafah.Bulldozers plowed
through dense urban areas to create wide patrol roads to facilitate the general
mobility of Israeli forces; they were not connected to combat activities.The demolitions displaced nearly sixteen thousand
people, a quarter of them in Rafah.[77]At least two thousand of the displaced were
moved to al-Arish, in the Sinai peninsula (then also under Israeli control),
and several hundred were sent to the West Bank.Israeli officials reportedly argued that
demolitions would serve both developmental and demographic aims:

The
Israelis say that their program of demolishing houses and putting in patrol
roads and lighting will begin by restoring security to the camps'
inhabitants.In the long run, they say,
by reducing congestion and building new housing and other facilities, they will
provide the beginnings of a decent life.Israeli officials are not yet prepared to discuss the long-range
aspects.They say they are legally
justified in moving refugees from Gaza into
occupied Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula.[78]

Some of
those displaced in 1971 again lost their homes in May 2004.Human Rights Watch researchers spoke to a
number of such families, many of whom identified the repeated bulldozing with
Ariel Sharon personally."We call him
'the bulldozer,'" one man told a British journalist as he stood in the ruins of
his home."This is not the first time
he's done this to us.The first time was
in 1971."[79]Human Rights Watch researchers also observed
a collapsed building in Brazil
near the border with the phrase "Sharon passed
through here" [shāron
marr min honā] scrawled on it in spray paint.

Box 1: A Bulldozer Driver's View

Property destruction to facilitate
movement of military forces reappeared in the current uprising during the IDF
assault on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002.The IDF used D9 bulldozers to plow paths
into the center of the camp after the killing of nine soldiers inside the
camp.The IDF also razed most of the
Hawashin district.According to an
investigation by Human Rights Watch, the IDF completely destroyed 140
buildings in Jenin and rendered two hundred more uninhabitable.More than a quarter of the population
became homeless."While there is no
doubt that Palestinian fighters in the Hawashin district had set up obstacles
and risks to IDF soldiers," Human Rights Watch found, "the wholesale leveling
of the entire district extended well beyond any conceivable purpose of
gaining access to fighters, and was vastly disproportionate to the military
objectives pursued."[80]

The following month, a D9 bulldozer
driver who participated in much of the destruction spoke frankly with an
Israeli journalist about his experiences:

For three
days, I just destroyed and destroyed.The whole area.Any house that
they fired from came down.And to
knock it down, I tore down some more.They were warned by loudspeaker to get out of the house before I
[would] come, but I gave no one a chance.I didn't wait.I didn't give
one blow, and [then] wait for them to come out.I would just ram the house with full power,
to bring it down as fast as possible.I wanted to get to the other houses.To get as many as possible.Others may have restrained themselves, or so they say.Who are they kidding?Anyone who was there, and saw our soldiers
in the houses, would understand they were in a death trap.I thought about saving them.I didn't give a damn about the
Palestinians, but I didn't just ruin with no reason. It was all under orders.

Many people
where inside houses we st[arted] to demolish.They would come out of the houses we where working on.I didn't see, with my own eyes, people
dying under the blade of the D9 and I didn't see house[s] falling down on
live people.But if there were any, I
wouldn't care at all.I am sure people
died inside these houses, but it was difficult to see, there was lots of dust
everywhere, and we worked a lot at night.I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew they
didn't mind dying, but they cared for their homes.If you knocked down a house, you buried 40
or 50 people for generations.If I am
sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down.

As far as
I am concerned, I left them with a football stadium, so they can play.This was our gift to the camp.Better than killing them.They will sit quietly.Jenin will not return to what it use[d] to
be.[81]

After publication of the article in the
newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, the IDF
gave Nissim a citation for outstanding service.

During the
current uprising, property destruction in the Gaza Strip for the security of
the IDF and settlers has far surpassed punitive demolitions.Most people inside the Gaza Strip who have
lost their homes were not alleged to have any connection with those who
participated in armed attacks.Rather,
the IDF has seized property, razed land, and destroyed homes in the context of
creating "buffer zones" for military bases, Israeli settlements, and the roads
that serve them.

IV. THE SECURITY SITUATION IN RAFAH

The IDF has
stated two main rationales for house demolitions along the Rafah border:
responding to and preventing attacks on its forces and suppressing the
smuggling of weapons through tunnels from Egypt.Both issues present problems to the security
of the Occupying Power.Nevertheless,
Human Rights Watch's research on the pattern of destruction since the beginning
of the uprising and the border security situation places Israeli justifications
for mass demolitions in serious doubt.

The
Egypt-Gaza border is 12.5 kilometers long, of which four kilometers run
alongside Rafah.According to the IDF,
"Rafah and the Philadelphi route is the most dangerous, violent area of the
whole conflict."[82]An IDF spokesman for the Southern Command
told Human Rights Watch that sixty to seventy percent of all Palestinian
attacks in the conflict occur in the southern zone.[83]Due to its border location, Rafah is also the
main area for smuggling tunnels called "arteries of terror," by the IDF that
supply Palestinian militants with arms and ammunition.

Palestinian
armed groups and residents in the area agree that Rafah is a hostile
place.Exchanges of fire, attacks on IDF
outposts, and Israeli incursions occur with regularity.And Palestinian armed groups admit receiving
weapons from Egypt
through tunnels in Rafah, although they deny the tunnels are as extensive as
the IDF claims.Rafah residents believe
the IDF's tunnel-hunting missions, which account for most of the 1,600 homes
destroyed in the camp, are a pretext to punish Rafah as a whole and undermine
support for the resistance.

Comprehensive statistics on combatant and civilian deaths
are unavailable and there is no consensus on how many Palestinian casualties
from IDF fire are civilians.The IDF
does not appear to keep statistics of civilian deaths or injuries inflicted by
its forces. According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 393 residents of the Rafah governorate
were killed between September
29, 2000, and August
31, 2004, including ninety-eight children under age eighteen.[84]The lowest possible percentage of
civilian victims in Rafah is twenty-nine, which is the percentage of women and
children killed over the past four years.The actual figure is undoubtedly much higher because twenty-nine percent
presumes that every
adult Palestinian male killed was directly participating in hostilities.In the same period, Palestinian armed groups have killed ten Israeli
soldiers in Rafah.[85]Five were killed on May 12, 2004, when their
armored personnel carrier (APC) was destroyed in the buffer zone.Four others were killed in various incursions
in July 2002, April 2003, and May 2004.In February 2001, a soldier was shot and killed by a sniper while
patrolling the border.In addition,
there have been two attacks on IDF positions in the border zone using explosives
moved through tunnels, resulting in three injuries.[86]

The IDF and Palestinian Armed Groups

The Gaza
Strip falls under the responsibility of the Southern Command of the Israel
Defense Force.The strip is further
divided into two districts: north and south.The southern brigade covers the towns of Rafah, Khan Yunis, and the Gush
Katif settlement blocs.

Box 2: Key Israeli
Decision-Makers in the Gaza
Strip

Prime Minister

Ariel Sharon (General Officer Commanding,
Southern Command 1969-1972)

Defense Minister

Shaul Mofaz (GOC Southern Command
1994-1996)

Chief of IDF General Staff

Lt. Gen. Moshe "Bogey" Ya'alon

GOC Southern Command

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel

Gaza Division

Brig. Gen.
Shmuel Zakai

Givati Brigade

Col.
Eyal Eisenberg

Southern Gaza District

Col. Pinhas "Pinky" Zuaretz (wounded
July 8, 2004)

Col. Yehoshua Rynski (current)

There are
four main Palestinian armed groups in Rafah, each affiliated with a different
political organization: the al-Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad), the 'Izz al-Din
Qassam Brigades (Hamas), the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Fatah), and the Nasser Salah
al-Din Brigades (Popular Resistance Committees, or PRC).Although these groups have different
political agendas, they share a common immediate goal: the end of Gaza's occupation.

The armed
groups in Rafah mostly engage in three types of actions: attacking IDF soldiers
and outposts along the border, resisting IDF incursions into Palestinian towns,
and attacking Jewish settlements in Gaza.The bulk of the groups' activity in Rafah
consists of monitoring IDF movements and preparing to defend against incursions,
which happen on a regular basis.Such
defenses include laying remote-controlled mines or IEDs in the streets,
booby-trapping homes, and placing snipers in buildings, the fighters said.

On the
ground, the four groups exchange information, coordinate activities and
undertake joint operations."We're still
brothers, despite being in different groups," a Rafah representative from the
Popular Resistance Committees, who presented himself as a local commander, told
Human Rights Watch."All of them work on
the ground as one unit because the enemy makes no distinction.Of course there were many joint operations."[87]An Islamic Jihad fighter who called himself
Abu Husayn agreed."If one group doesn't
have enough weapons in a neighborhood, we bring it to them," he said."We also share information."[88]

In
conversations and interviews with Rafah residents, the views on armed groups in
town ranged from support to disdain.Some sympathized with "the resistance" as the best means to fight the
occupation, and supported the resistance at all costs.Others said the groups are ineffective and
brought further hardship to the civilian population.As one resident of Block J who lives two
hundred meters from the border complained, "the resistance cannot defend
us.They were coming here sometimes
before, but when the tanks come they run away."[89]"Even if people come with guns, we stop
them," one Rafah resident said, referring to the Palestinian groups."We're afraid for our houses and children.When there are clashes here, we are the ones
who suffer."[90]Perhaps this statement best reflects the most
common view among civilians in the affected areas: the resistance is a good
thing, as long as it is not in my neighborhood.

The fighters
from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees said protecting
civilians was a main concern, but their strategies place into question the
extent to which they put civilians at risk.When asked what steps they take to minimize civilian harm, the fighters
said they prefer to fight in empty areas but that the Israeli forces often
attack in inhabited zones."The problem
is that Israeli tanks attack houses while people are inside, so the resistance
is forced to fight these tanks while people are inside," the PRC commander
said.The IDF responds with the same
claim, saying it is "forced to operate in Palestinian civilian areas because
the terrorists use the civilian areas as their base of operation."[91]

Fighting on the Border

The patrol
corridor along the Rafah border is well-fortified against attack by adversaries
armed mainly with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and
improvised explosive devices (IEDs).Towers afford visual surveillance over much of Rafah, while armored patrols
allow mobile monitoring and force protection.In late 2002 and early 2003, the IDF doubled the width of its patrol
corridor by constructing a metal barrier on land where recently demolished
homes near the border had stood.As of
May, the wall is eight meters high and 1.6 kilometers long.By pushing the IDF perimeter closer to the
camp, the metal wall has become a new starting point for the buffer zone,
justifying further demolitions.This
dynamic of expansion explains in part the dramatic increase in the pace of
demolitions after the completion of the metal wall which should have enhanced
the security of the IDF.

Palestinian
armed groups attack the IDF border positions with small arms, homemade bombs,
and rocket-propelled grenades, mostly at night and rarely with success.On the other side, IDF positions and roving
tanks along the border and in the buffer zone fire on a daily basis into Rafah
with heavy machine guns, rockets, and tank cannons, often
indiscriminately.Such indiscriminate
shooting, even when in response to attack from populated areas, violates
international law.

Human Rights
Watch researchers visiting the border area in July 2004, for example, heard
frequent incoming fire from .50-caliber machine guns (possessed only by the
IDF) directed at the edge of the camp.Nearly every house at the edge of the destroyed area was extensively
pockmarked by heavy machine gun, tank, and rocket fire on the side facing the
border.Bullet holes were not only
clustered around windows or other possible sniper positions, but sprayed over
entire sides of buildings.Human Rights
Watch researchers visiting homes at the edge of the camp examined damage caused
by bullets to appliances and furniture that had passed through several walls,
entering rooms facing away from the border.

During three
nights spent in Rafah, Human Rights Watch researchers heard long bursts of
heavy machine gun fire directed at the camp throughout the night, and local
residents said such IDF shooting was normal.Researchers also heard scattered shooting from AK-47s used by
Palestinians occasionally interspersed between the IDF barrages.

In the
nearby refugee camp of Khan Yunis on July 22, 2004, Human Rights Watch researchers saw IDF
tracer rounds from heavy machine guns indiscriminately falling onto buildings
fifty meters away.The researchers did
not witness or hear any Palestinian shooting from the area at the time.While it is difficult to determine whether
these shootings were provoked or not, they were clearly indiscriminate.Previous visits by Human Rights Watch researchers
to the area since 2001, as well as interviews with local residents, indicated
that the shooting witnessed in Rafah and Khan Yunis was a regular occurrence.

One
significant indicator of the degree of security achieved by the IDF is the
viewpoint of its adversaries.Fighters
in Rafah interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that attacking the IDF bunkers
and watchtowers on the border is largely in vain, and the slowly-expanding
buffer zone makes it virtually impossible to approach the border to lay mines
or IEDs."We usually fight during
invasions.It's very different to work
when there's no invasion," explained Abu Husayn from Islamic Jihad."It's hard to make any resistance near the
border.It's a dangerous area."[92]Small arms fire on fortified IDF targets is
also limited due to the high cost of ammunition.According to Abu Husayn, one Kalashnikov
round a 7.62mm bullet costs 32 Israeli shekels, or around U.S. $7 dollars.[93]

The major
exception this year was the May 12 attack by Islamic Jihad with an RPG on an
Israeli armored vehicle in the buffer zone that killed five Israeli
soldiers.The vehicle was laden with
explosives for use in destroying smuggling tunnels.The vehicle was hit while between the metal
wall and the camp, not while inside
the shielded patrol corridor.The
circumstances of the incident illustrate the IDF's expansive concept of
security: the IDF destroyed houses, built a metal wall, and doubled the width
of the patrol corridor in part to protect troops against attack. But as the patrol corridor widened, the IDF
perimeter came significantly closer to the remaining homes, exposing it to
risks that are now being invoked to justify the further demolition of homes in
order to expand the buffer zone.According to this logic, the IDF could continue to relocate its
positions progressively closer to homes and then destroy them for security
purposes.

Caught
between overwhelming IDF fire and the activities of Palestinian armed groups,
Rafah residents in the border area live under constant threat.Despite the shooting and danger of incursion,
some are reluctant to vacate their homes, fearing the IDF would regard them as
uninhabited and order them destroyed.Under international law, military commanders must ensure that the civilian
costs of their actions are proportionate to concrete tactical gains. In such
calculations, uninhabited civilian buildings tend to be of less value than an
inhabited house.Israeli officials have
often defended demolitions on the grounds that such houses were
uninhabited.Houses cannot be demolished
merely because they are uninhabited, however; the necessity of demolition must
be established first.These official
Israeli statements also ignore the role that indiscriminate and at times
unprovoked Israeli shooting contributes to "abandonment."

Most
importantly, mere absence is not the same as abandonment.Many Rafah residents vacate their homes
temporarily but attempt to stay as much as possible.Staying even part-time entails considerable
risks, but it also allows owners to ensure their homes are not used by gunmen
or tunnel-diggers.One Palestinian,
living in the municipal stadium after being bulldozed out of two homes by the
IDF in 2001 and 2004, explained how the IDF tactics force Palestinians near the
border to leave their homes. "If [the Israelis] want to make you leave the
home, they shoot the walls, they shoot the windows," he said."Then they can come and say 'It is empty,'
and bulldoze the house."[94]

Ahmed
Najjar, a construction worker who lives in what is now the last line of houses
inBlock J, has petitioned the Israeli
Supreme Court to prevent his home from being demolished.While he waits for the Court to decide on
whether it will hear his case, bullets from IDF positions regularly enter his
house:

This is
our home.It's our right to stay
here.We shouldn't have to leave because
of the shelling.We are still living
here.Every time there is a house where
the owners remove the furniture, it's then destroyed. I expect them to come at
any time [to demolish].[95]

Mr. Najjar's
neighbor, Moussa Sarafandi, has also petitioned the Court to prevent the
destruction of his house.He showed
Human Rights Watch researchers bullet holes from IDF positions in his
refrigerator and walls."The children
are psychologically affected," he said."They can't sleep.They wet the
bed without any control."[96]This anxiety is only heightened if the home
is actually demolished."Destruction of
the home means loss of trust, rendering children insecure," said Eyad Zaqout, a
psychiatrist with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program."It gives them an acute sense of
vulnerability"[97]One week after Human Rights Watch researchers
visited Mr. Sarafandi's home, it was damaged when the IDF exploded a nearby
house.[98]

Mohammed
al-Namla, a playwright who works at a local children's centre, lives in a
building that the IDF tried to demolish in May 2004; after human rights
activists and the Namla family reached an IDF legal adviser by phone, the
demolition was called off for the time being.Several weeks later, Mr. Namla said, troops returned to force the family
out, leaving them in fear again that the home would be demolished; instead, the
soldiers commandeered the house for a day and left after vandalizing the
furniture, leaving feces in the family's clothes, and stealing U.S. $200 in
cash.Located in the Brazil neighborhood, less than
three hundred meters from the border, the house is one of the last remaining
buildings in the vicinity, but the al-Namla family refuses to leave and
continues to repair damage from previous incursions.Awareness that abandonment could also
possibly allow gunmen to enter, ensuring the demolition of the home, only
exacerbates the family's anxiety.Mr.
Namla, who takes turns with his father and brother standing guard, told Human
Rights Watch about the intense shooting from the IDF into the area, especially
at night:

If the
area gets quiet, I'll go back for sure. My father still goes to the house
during the day to keep gunmen from it.My brother and I alternate sleeping there.Last night I was in the house.I sat with coffee and cigarettes all night
waiting for something to happen.There
was heavy shooting into Brazil,
everybody expected an invasion.[99]

Smuggling Tunnels in Rafah

Smugglers' tunnels are the IDF's main stated reason for incursions into
Rafah and house demolitions near the border.As the military has repeatedly argued, it aims to find and destroy the
tunnels that Palestinian armed groups use to obtain weapons and ammunition.

Human Rights Watch researched the tunnel situation on the border by
speaking with Rafah residents, IDF officers, PNA officials, foreign diplomats
in Israel, Israeli and foreign journalists, Egyptian security officials, and
experts familiar with the nature of Rafah's subsurface soil.Interviews were conducted with three foreign
experts in detecting and/or neutralizing tunnels.[100]Based on this research, Human Rights Watch
believes that the IDF's pattern of house demolitions is inconsistent with its
stated goals.In some cases, the
destruction was disproportionate and arbitrary.

Smuggling
tunnels exist, but the Israeli government and military are exaggerating their
numbers, their lateral extent, and the number of entry/exit points, known as
egress shafts.The IDF claims to have
uncovered at least ninety tunnels since 2000, but it has actually found ninety
tunnel egresses, of which an
undisclosed fraction actually led to tunnels that ran to Egypt. Others were
incomplete shafts that could have been closed with poured concrete.Before 2003,the IDF bulldozed individual
homes that covered tunnel exits without taking action against the tunnels
themselves.

In addition,
Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which the IDF demolished groups
of homes in order to "close" tunnels that had already been closed by the
PNA.It also destroyed houses covering
incomplete tunnel entrances, representing potential threats that could have
been sealed with concrete.Such
operations frequently resulted not only in the destruction of the house with
the tunnel exit, but in the bulldozing of surrounding houses as well, either in
response to Palestinian weapons fire or as a preventive measure.

Finally, a
number of non-destructive methods exist to detect and neutralize clandestine
tunnels, especially where they cross beneath the IDF-controlled border.Such technology, successfully tested and
repeatedly utilized under semi-hostile conditions elsewhere, could reduce or
obviate the need for incursions inside Rafah.The IDF claims to have exhausted all alternatives but declined to
explain what methods it has tested in Rafah and why those methods proved
ineffective.While some information
regarding tunnel detection may be sensitive, the current policy of house
demolitions has an enormous impact on the civilian population.The burden is therefore on the IDF to clarify
why the only way of dealing with tunnels that run beneath their positions is to
demolish houses deeper and deeper into Rafah.

An Overview

Tunnels are
both a longstanding acknowledged fact in Rafah and a phenomenon shrouded in
rumor.It is widely agreed that after
the international border under the 1979 Camp David treaty divided Rafah between
Egypt and Gaza, smugglers began to dig in the soft sand to facilitate the
transfer of goods, mostly cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs.The tunnels were an economic venture at the
time, and their value increased as Israel tightened its controls
around the Gaza Strip.As resistance to
the occupation increased, the tunnels were used for the passage of arms and
ammunition.[101]

Today, the
tunnels are operated by a reportedly small group of smugglers who plan, dig,
and maintain the passages, transporting goods for whomever pays.The exit shafts are usually dug in private
homes, both inhabited and abandoned.According to the IDF, "economic factors play a crucial role in
recruiting local residents into the weapons smuggling 'industry.'"[102]The head of the PNA Preventive Security
Service in Rafah mostly agreed."Most
people have no work and nothing to do, so they rent their houses to tunnel
traders," Yusuf Abu Siyam said.He added
that "the reason for the tunnels is the occupation, because people have no work
and the economy is bad."[103]The IDF has also alleged that some house
owners are coerced by armed gangs to allow their homes to be used, but the
broad pattern suggests that money is the main motivating factor.

His point
was echoed by Dr. Ali Shehada Ali Barhoum, the city manager at Rafah
municipality, who asked rhetorically why the tunnels exist."You put people in the corner without any
resources and ask them to survive," he answered."Close the border, no opportunity to work,
jobless people and ask them to survive.The tunnels weren't big before the Intifada when people could work in Israel."[104]

According to
Preventive Security chief Abu Siyam, the smuggled goods include cigarettes,
alcohol, drugs, and doves, a popular pet in town.But, he admitted, the main items in recent
years are Kalashnikov automatic rifles, ammunition, explosives, and
grenades.Indeed, Palestinian armed
groups in Rafah told Human Rights Watch they received such arms and ammunition
through the tunnels, although they denied the tunnels were central to their
work."There are many ways to fight the
occupation, not only tunnels," the Popular Resistance Committees commander
said.

The IDF
presents the tunnels as a massive threat."These tunnels as we see them are the gateway to terror," IDF
spokeswoman Major Sharon Feingold told Human Rights Watch.She said that Palestinian armed groups use
them to obtain ever-more sophisticated weapons and explosives for attacks
against Israeli civilians, and that intelligence suggests more serious weapons
are waiting to enter with help from Iran and Lebanon-based Hezbollah.[105]

According to
Maj. Librati, most tunnels are between three and twenty meters deep, and sixty
to seventy centimeters wide, or shoulder-width.[106]The IDF has distributed some photographs of
shafts and tunnels consistent with these dimensions.In videos released by the IDF, most shafts
are vertical, linking to a tunnel at an angle of ninety degrees.[107]An Israeli civilian photographer who
accompanied soldiers on more than one dozen tunnel-hunting missions told Human
Rights Watch that he saw motorized cables in the tunnels for transporting
goods.[108]The exits in Rafah are mostly in private
homes near the border, hidden under tiles or furniture.

The PNA says
since September 2000 it has closed ten tunnel shafts with poured concrete.According to the head of the PNA Preventive
Security Service in Rafah, Yusuf Abu Siyam, the PNA has a special unit
dedicated to tunnel detection and destruction that cooperates with "other
international agencies."In addition, he
said his office had arrested diggers, tunnel operators, and home owners who
allowed their property to be used, although he did not provide details.[109]

Human Rights
Watch spoke separately with a member of the PNA's Preventive Security Service,
Taleb Abu Sharikh, who said he had personally closed seven tunnel shafts in the
past four years by pouring concrete from above, and the PNA had closed ten such
entrances in total.He complained that,
in one case from September 2003, the IDF opened fire on his team while they
were closing a tunnel entrance in the Block O section of the camp, despite
having been notified that his team would be working in the area.[110]Abu Sharikh and Abu Siyam also complained
that the IDF sometimes destroyed a home with a tunnel entrance that the PNA had
already sealed."Every time we closed a
tunnel, the bulldozers came right after," Abu Siyam said."They use the tunnels as an excuse to destroy
an area."

The IDF
responds that the PNA has tolerated if not actively supported the tunnels'
construction by encouraging people to conceal exit holes in their houses or on
their property.[111]Attempts by the PNA to close tunnels, the IDF
says, have been cosmetic at best, and in many cases the IDF was forced to
reseal a shaft because the PNA's work was incomplete.

Human Rights
Watch also raised the matter with Egyptian authorities, who are monitoring the
tunnels from their side of the border in cooperation with Israel."No one has an accurate number of tunnels,
but they are limited in number and are mostly deserted," General Ahmed Omar of
the Egyptian Interior Ministry explained, estimating that the Egyptian
authorities have found less than ten tunnels in recent years."It is not logical for there to be many
tunnels and for them to remain secret."According to General Omar, smuggling into Rafah is insignificant
compared to the two-way overland smuggling of people, drugs, and other goods on
the much longer Egyptian-Israeli border, which is composed mostly of desert.[112]

In meetings
with Human Rights Watch, IDF officials expressed conflicting opinions about Israel's satisfaction with Egypt on the border issue, with
some praising their efforts and others saying that more could be done."We understand that the Egyptians are quite
active.Whenever they find a tunnel they
report it to us, they send us pictures, they give us information about the
shaft.We also give the Egyptians
information that we can," said Maj. Librati."We understand that they could do better.But it is very good and effective
coordination.There's a lot to do."[113]Off the record, other IDF officers expressed
dissatisfaction with Egypt's
efforts on the border.Western diplomats
based in Israel generally agreed that Egyptian security forces may allow and
even profit from some small-scale smuggling of contraband but they are
otherwise in control of their side of the Gaza border and would not allow
advanced weapons to be smuggled through it.

In addition
to tunnels under the border, armed groups are digging tunnels inside the Gaza
Strip to attack IDF positions.Most
recently, on June 27, 2004, Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed
responsibility for an explosion under an IDF checkpoint in central Gaza that killed one
soldier and wounded five others.These
internal tunnels are not a major factor cited by the IDF for demolitions in
Rafah.

Tunnels vs. Shafts

Since
September 2000, the IDF says it has discovered and destroyed more than ninety
tunnels in Rafah.[114]This figure is repeated frequently by the
military and Israeli politicians, giving the impression that Rafah is
honeycombed with underground passages, each of them pumping arms to armed
Palestinian groups, with new ones constantly being dug.

In an
interview with Human Rights Watch, Maj. Librati, of the IDF Southern Command
clarified that the IDF had not found ninety tunnels, but rather ninety entrance shafts in Rafah.He explained that there are far fewer actual
tunnels under the border, and Rafah smugglers dig new shafts to connect with
what exists below."We do not know how
many tunnels there are, but they are not digging all the way under Egypt,"
he said.[115]This is consistent with an account a Rafah
smuggler gave to the Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who has covered the Gaza
Strip for Ha'aretz since 1991.According to the smuggler and another "Palestinian source" cited in the
article, the IDF closes entrance shafts rather than tunnels, and therefore
often counts existing tunnels two or more times.[116]According to Maj. Librati, "We don't know the
exact number of tunnels."An IDF
document available on the Internet claims that, as of May 2004, ten to fifteen
tunnels remained in operation.[117]

According to
Maj. Librati, only since 2003 have IDF personnel ventured into the tunnels
themselves to collapse them with explosives.Before that, the IDF bulldozed houses covering tunnel entrance shafts
without closing the tunnels themselves.[118] Such a practice was largely
ineffective: by leaving most of the tunnel intact, the IDF allowed smugglers to
reopen the tunnel from another location.Two experts in tunnel neutralization consulted by Human Rights Watch
considered the technique illogical."As
a tunnel engineer and as a military guy I would have to say that's really quite
foolish," said Dr. Allen Hatheway, a retired professor of geological
engineering at the University of Missouri and a retired U.S. Army Reserve
Colonel who spent parts of five years working on North Korean tunnels in the
Korean DMZ on behalf of the U.S. military and the South Korean government.He told Human Rights Watch: "It really is
highly illogical in the sense of a defensive mechanism not to utilize the found
access shaft to learn the maximum amount of information about the tunnel system
and then to go in that tunnel system to the point where the maximum amount of
damage can be done to the tunneler's access."[119]

The IDF
changed tactics in 2003.According to
one press account, that year a junior IDF officer named Lieutenant Aviv Hakani
gathered an informal group of soldiers specializing in tunnels discovery, which
began entering tunnels to devise ways of collapsing them.[120]The attack on the APC in May 2004 killed
Hakani and many of the soldiers in the unit.In June 2004, after destroying approximately 1,500 homes in Rafah, the
IDF reportedly decided to create a company-sized unit specializing in tunnels.[121]The IDF's approach namely, the use of
puzzlingly ineffective methods for two years, followed by unclear improvements
reportedly initiated by a junior officer contrast sharply with the stated
gravity of this longstanding threat.

Without
doubt, smugglers have dug new cross-border tunnels in recent years.According to the smuggler interviewed by
Amira Hass, five to seven tunnels ran from Egypt on the eve of the
uprising.Smugglers have built more than
thirty tunnels in the four years since, he claimed, though it is unclear if he
was referring to entrances or to whole tunnels (the lateral components).[122]Much of the digging appears to be of new
shafts to pre-existing tunnels, as Maj. Librati said.

The IDF
provided Human Rights Watch with a list of tunnels it claimed to have found in
Rafah since 2000, listed by date but with no location data and with
descriptions included in only a few cases.[123]When Human Rights Watch requested the IDF to
provide a more precise list specifying how many whole tunnels had been closed
versus entrance shafts, the IDF said that such information was classified.[124]

Destruction Around Inoperative Tunnels

Human Rights
Watch documented three cases where the IDF destroyed houses even though tunnel
entrances in or near them had either been closed or were inoperative.These tunnel entrances were discovered by
local residents, who then told the PNA in the hopes that, by having the tunnels
closed, they could avert an IDF incursion.The residents of Rafah all protested the arbitrary nature of the IDF's
demolitions, but many people also had contempt for the profiteers who dig
tunnels in their neighborhoods, thereby providing the IDF with a pretext to
demolish homes.

Around
midnight between July 20 and 21, 2004, the IDF entered and sealed off an area
of housing at the edge of Rafah's Salam and Brazil neighborhoods, approximately
250 meters from the border.According to
UNRWA, Israeli forces demolished eighteen houses, leaving 205 people
homeless.At least one factory was also
destroyed.The IDF announced that it had
found and destroyed two incomplete tunnel shafts.

Human Rights
Watch researchers visited the scene approximately three hours after Israeli
forces had departed and witnessed crowds of people recovering furniture,
clothes, bedding, and other personal items from the rubble.The pattern of destruction was partial;
rather than an entire area of homes being uniformly razed, several three- or
four-story buildings remained standing.As discussed in Chapter 6, this is consistent with a pattern of
demolishing mostly smaller homes while commandeering taller ones which are
more difficult to bulldoze as sniper outposts.During a three-hour visit, researchers did
not find any physical evidence of exchanges of fire, such as bullet holes or
spent shell casings.

As the
incursion began, Zakia Timraz watched military bulldozers plow through her
family's soda bottling factory, carving a path into the Salam
neighborhood.A group of soldiers then
took over her house, which was next to the factory, and confined all twelve
members of the family to one room for the duration of the incursion, which
lasted for over twenty-four hours.From
there, Ms. Timraz could hear sounds of the destruction taking place:

They
destroyed mainly in the night, not during the daytime.I could hear [the bulldozing] starting around
1:00 a.m. on the first night, as they destroyed to the east of the house.Last night and this morning, they bulldozed
on the west side of the house.They do
nothing during the day but keep the engines on.[125]

The
demolition continued throughout the first night.Ismail Abu Libda, who watched the bulldozing
for several hours that night from his home at the boundary between Brazil
and Salam neighborhoods, went to sleep believing his area would be safe:

I was
sleeping when [the bulldozer] hit our walls.They didn't give us any warning.We heard our walls falling as we woke up.Some of us were able to put clothes on,
others not. I saw some armed [Palestinian] fighters down the street to the
west as I was escaping from my house.They were standing, waiting, not doing anything. We didn't take
anything with us, we left the door open.We went to my sister's house in Jnayna neighborhood.We did not look behind us.The house was destroyed in five minutes.[126]

Three other
eyewitnesses also said that there had been no hostilities in the area at the
time.According to a representative of
Islamic Jihad, one pre-placed explosive charge was detonated during the
incursion near an IDF armored vehicle, without causing significant damage.Fighters rushed to the area, he said, but
arrived too late to confront the IDF, which had already sealed off the area by
positioning tanks in the streets and snipers in the higher buildings.[127]

At 6:00 a.m.
on July 22, the IDF destroyed a multi-story house in the area using explosive
charges and then withdrew.The blast
could be felt throughout Rafah, including by Human Rights Watch researchers
nearly one kilometer away.The house had
been vacated weeks earlier, and residents had recently found an incomplete
tunnel shaft inside.Ismail Abu Libda
told Human Rights Watch:

A week
ago we knew about the hole in the neighborhood.The house was empty, and we saw some guys going in who didn't live
there.So people in the neighborhood
became suspicious.I went with some of
the people.[The hole] was in the
sitting room.It was not covered and the
house was empty.It was a 9-10m deep
hole with sand at the bottom.We
informed [PNA] Preventive Security but they didn't come.[128]

Human Rights
Watch researchers were unable to verify the existence of the tunnel shaft, as
the destruction of the house in question left behind only a large crater strewn
with debris.During the visit, another
loud explosion occurred nearby in the buffer zone, throwing a geyser of dirt
into the air.

Later that
day, the IDF issued a statement announcing the discovery and destruction of two
incomplete tunnel shafts in the operation, 8 and 6.5 meters deep respectively,
the former in a "civilian structure."The statement claimed that Palestinians detonated several explosives
against the IDF, but made no reference of any other armed resistance, nor were
any house demolitions mentioned.[129]

By
demolishing homes on two nights in the face of little or no resistance, the IDF
appears to have destroyed these buildings without meeting the requirement of
absolute military necessity which demands that the destruction take place in
order to serve requirements related to actual combat.Moreover, the demolition of eighteen civilian
homes, rendering over two hundred people homeless, was clearly unnecessary to
close two incomplete tunnel shafts.An
expert in tunnel neutralization consulted by Human Rights Watch who wished to
remain unnamed confirmed that incomplete shafts can be effectively sealed with
poured concrete.[130]

Human Rights
Watch also documented two cases in which the IDF destroyed homes after the PNA,
tipped off by local residents fearing an Israeli incursion, had sealed tunnel
entrances in the area.A third case was
reported in the Israeli media.Human
Rights Watch was unable to locate the residents who allegedly hosted the
tunnels in their homes, as they had left the area to avoid retaliation from
former friends and neighbors.

In September
or October 2003, for example, residents of Brazil neighborhood discovered an
incomplete tunnel shaft in the Abu Na'ama house.The homeowner's father-in-law recalled the
anger that spread through the neighborhood: "Amer Abu Na'ama was the man whose
house the tunnel was in.We went to beat
him up," Mahmoud al-Mghali told Human Rights Watch. "He was beaten so badly he
went to the hospital.I think he knew
the army was coming."[131]

Abu Sharikh
from the Preventive Security Service confirmed the case, saying, "We get
information from people about tunnels, especially in the Abu Na'ma case.We went with the police and put concrete in
the tunnel.This tunnel was also
incomplete.The next day, the Israelis
came and destroyed houses in the area.They put explosives in the house and three or four nearby houses were
damaged by the blast."[132]Khadra Abu Na'ama, one of the residents of
the house, denied that there had been a tunnel in her home in an interview with
a foreign journalist and accused neighbors of making false accusations.[133]

According to
Amira Hass, residents of Yibna neighborhood reportedly burned the home of a
tunnel operator named Hussein Abu Zaid in December 2003.The IDF sealed the tunnel and destroyed the
surrounding homes, but left Abu Zaid's home intact, prompting accusations that
he was collaborating with the Israelis.[134]It is unclear if this was a shaft connecting
to a tunnel or just a reference to an incomplete shaft.

In May 2004,
residents in the Brazil
district learned of a tunnel in the house of the Bablifamily.The PNA closed the tunnel with cement and
residents then set fire to the house themselves, hoping to avoid an Israeli
incursion.According to one neighbor who
witnessed the closing of the tunnel, "[The PNA] left, and the neighbors started
to destroy the house.We thought that
this tunnel would be a disaster for us.We wanted to show that there was no tunnel in our neighborhood. The
whole area is angry and upset with the Babli family."[135]The IDF came nevertheless, destroying houses
in the area during the major May 2004 incursions and announcing the discovery
of an incomplete tunnel entrance shaft (see Map 7).Residents believe that the IDF was referring
to the tunnel entrance sealed earlier by the PNA; the IDF told journalists that
it would not disclose the exact location of the shaft or the name of the family
in whose house it was discovered.[136]

Alternatives to House Destruction

In
interviews with Human Rights Watch, two IDF officials said the IDF had explored
all options for tunnel interdiction and destruction.They were unwilling to provide details of
what they had tried and why such measures were unsatisfactory, but they
maintained that incursions into Rafah and the destruction of tunnels and/or
shafts under homes was the most effective means to close the tunnels down.According to IDF spokeswoman Maj. Sharon
Feingold, the IDF takes "the utmost care to pinpoint the tunnels and do as
little damage as possible."[137]

Without
further information, Human Rights Watch cannot verify the IDF's claims.However, according to outside experts on
tunnels, mines, and geology (see footnote 101), as well as technical
engineering documents on tunnels published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
numerous options for tunnel detection and closure exist that would not involve
dangerous and often violent incursions resulting in destroyed homes and
sometimes loss of life.Without further
information from the IDF it is impossible to determine whether the Israeli
military has pursued these options in good faith.As the Occupying Power under international
law, the IDF is obliged to pursue and implement all possible measures to
minimize civilian harm.

There are no
simple and comprehensively effective methods for detecting tunnels, but experts
stressed that a combination of different techniques, many of which can
compensate for each other's shortcomings, should be effective, especially in a
relatively small area where forces control and are familiar with the
terrain."With a threshold of effort,
tunnels are easier to defeat than they are to construct," said Dr.
Hatheway."Once you're in place [the
tunnelers] become very vulnerable."[138]

The Rafah
border is only four kilometers long and under IDF control.The soil beneath Rafah consists mostly of a
layer of dry, fine, sand above a layer of silty clay that has higher water
content.The groundwater surface in
Rafah camp begins at approximately forty-five meters below the ground surface.[139]Dry fine sand is difficult to tunnel in
without reinforcement, because such ground tends to ravel (break apart), especially
as it becomes dry from the air circulated for tunnel users.Also, it is not technically feasible to
construct and to operate tunnels below the groundwater surface without
sophisticated pumping techniques.Furthermore, such pumping requires the use of an electrical supply that
would yield electromagnetic radiation detectable by geophysical sensors.Thus, most tunnels in Rafah would need to be
between ten and forty-five meters underground.Tunneling in such conditions is still difficult and dangerous, requiring
adequate ventilation and light.Circulating air through tunnels tends to dry out soil, reducing
cohesiveness and increasing the risk of collapse.Moving and concealing displaced soil without
attracting attention in densely populated neighborhoods is another considerable
challenge.

Tunnel
detection methods generally aim at recognizing and measuring physical and/or
chemical-property anomalies in the ground.For example, the physical properties of air inside a tunnel tend to
contrast sharply with those of the surrounding soil.If the tunnels contain electrical wires,
lights, and pulley mechanisms, as the IDF claims, then the presence of metals
and other manmade materials, as well as the noise of installing and operating
them, would all increase detectability.According to three reports on tunnels issued by The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, various techniques, often used in combination, have been used to
successfully detect tunnels in places like the Mexico-U.S. border and the
Korean DMZ.[141]Based on research missions in more than fifteen
tunnel sites around the world, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Tunnel
Detection Team recommends a combination of the following techniques depending
on soil type, the amount of subterranean infrastructure or debris, and other
local factors.These techniques can be
used from the surface, or by placing sensors in boreholes:

Seismic
sensors Seismic
sensors measure vibrations in the ground to map the subsurface.There are generally two types: passive and
active.Passive seismic sensors are
essentially microphones ("geophones") established on the ground surface or
within boreholes in the ground to detect anomalies in the passage of actively
induced vibrations or to passively record natural or manmade disturbances
related to sounds or vibrations caused by activity in the tunnel.Active seismic sensors require the pulsing of
energy into the ground and recording the resulting reflection or
refraction.Sensors can be used on the
surface or in boreholes dug along a border where tunneling activity is suspected.

Electromagnetic
induction EM
induction measures the apparent electrical conductivity of materials in the
ground.The air in a tunnel, for
example, has a much lower electrical conductivity than surrounding soil,
especially if the soil is moist. The
existence of highly conductive materials such as metal from any rails,
electrical wires, or supports would also be easier to detect.By setting up two coils, one to create an
electromagnetic field and another to receive it, the conductivity of the ground
can be analyzed.

Electrical
resistivity This measures how well the soil resists electrical current (the inverse
of conductivity).By placing two
electrodes in the ground, injecting an electrical current into the ground, and
measuring the voltage difference between them, resistivity can be measured.

Ground
penetrating radar (GPR) High frequency electromagnetic pulses are transmitted into the ground
to detect "voids."With this technique,
the GPR transmitter and sensor are combined in a wheeled, person-towed device
that is pulled along at a nominal rate of a fraction of a meter per
second.As well, the frequency of the
electromagnetic pulses can be adjusted, as long as the operators are equipped
with a variety of alternative antennae to mount in the sensing device.Penetration and resolution are negatively
affected by water and natural clay minerals within the soil of the tunneling
ground.In dry soil, such as sand, GPR
can generally penetrate up to ten meters underground and still detect anomalies
such as the presence of the cross section of the tunnel (best employed when the
GPR traverse is perpendicular to the tunnel axis).

Technologies also exist to detect tunnel digging activity rather than the
tunnels themselves.One detailed report by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, entitled Cave and Tunnel Detection, a State-of-the-Art
Assessment, suggested the deployment of underground seismic "fences" to
detect tunneling activity.Sensors
placed in the ground would detect the vibrations caused by the construction of
new tunnels which, according to Maj. Feingold, "are being dug as we
speak."The U.S. government successfully tested
an underground fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in 1999 to detect the digging
of tunnels 1.5 meters wide in similar depths as in Rafah in an area with
significantly more noise from surface automobile traffic."It's a pretty remarkable thing," said Dr.
Lillian Wakeley of the U.S. Army's Engineering Research and DevelopmentCenter,
who was involved with the test.Wakeley said
that the sensors detected and could differentiate the use of air hammers, hand
picks, and other digging techniques.She
also described it as a cost-effective tool that was implemented without much
difficulty: "It really isn't rocket science."[142]Ordinary soldiers can be trained in tunnel
detection techniques.

Use of these
geophysical techniques on the border could obviate the perceived need for
incursions and the systematic destruction of civilian homes.Unlike human intelligence, which locates a
tunnel's exit in Rafah, techniques like electromagnetic induction and GPR might
tell the IDF where a tunnel is crossing under the border.

Techniques
have also been developed to neutralize tunnels once detected.Special mixes of cement injected at high
pressure and controlled use of explosives can be used to neutralize tunnels
while minimizing harm to structures on the surface.Generally speaking, smaller tunnels can be
closed with less difficulty.No
demolitions of structures were employed to close tunnels on the U.S.-Mexico
border, even though some of the houses used were also densely clustered within
meters of the border.

When asked
about alternative means of detecting tunnels, IDF Spokesman Maj. Assaf Librati
provided some information, saying the IDF had detonated explosives fifteen to
twenty meters under the ground to create "a seismic shock," although he did not
say whether these explosions were related to sensors for tunnel detection or to
tunnel closure.He also claimed the IDF
had tried to put sensors in the ground, but he did not say whether these
attempts were successful.Given the
vagueness of the information provided by the IDF, Human Rights Watch cannot
determine with certainty whether the IDF has fully pursued all alternatives to
minimize civilian harm, as required by international law.

One option
the IDF has publicly explored is the construction of a four-kilometer trench
along the Philadelphi Route.Several weeks after the intense international
criticism of the May 2004 demolitions, the Defense Ministry issued a tender for
the trench's construction.As of October
2004, the Israeli cabinet had not yet approved the plan.

According to
Major Librati, the early plan envisions a 300 meter wide "V" shaped trench some
twenty meters deep at the center.This
would ostensibly allow the IDF to get closer to the cross-border tunnels while
free of harassing weapons fire from Rafah.Twenty meters beneath ground level, soldiers would not need to dig so
deeply to deploy explosive charges.Another option is to fill the trench with water like a moat to block
tunnels or to flood them if penetrated.

The project
as described is highly problematic on several grounds and may carry serious
consequences for the welfare of the civilian population in the area.First, the IDF has argued that construction
of the trench may require further mass demolitions to widen the buffer zone, in
order to reduce risk to those digging the trench.[143]This would defeat the purpose of digging a
trench in order to obviate the need for demolitions.

Even without
demolitions, the project seems impractical from engineering and environmental
perspectives.The Rafah ground slopes
gradually upward from west to east, so that a moat connected to the sea would
require leveling the land at enormous cost, one water engineer said.[144]If the moat is intended to reach both the
water table and the Mediterranean Sea, it
would mix sea water with underground drinking water, greatly exacerbating the
already pressing water crisis in the Gaza Strip.If the trench was filled with water from
another source, it would have to be circulated regularly to prevent it from
becoming stagnant and threatening public health.E, TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN...T OUR MAIN CONCERN HAS THE FATE OF THE
CIVILIAN POPULATION AS THE FOCUS RATHER THAN THE RISK OF THE

V. THE RAFAH BUFFER ZONE SINCE 2000

House
demolitions have been routine in Rafah since the spring of 2001, punctuated by
three major waves of destruction in January 2002, October 2003, and May
2004.The overwhelming majority of these
demolitions have taken place near the border, forming a de facto "buffer zone"
that is now effectively a "no-go" area for Palestinians and foreigners.According to interviews with foreign
diplomats and journalists and observations by Human Rights Watch researchers
during visits to the area since 2001, those entering or approaching the buffer
zone, including humanitarian workers, are likely to receive warning fire.Even visiting foreign dignitaries have come
under unprovoked fire: In June 2004, observers from the U.K. charity Christian Aid, as well
as visiting British Parliamentarians using a U.N.-flagged vehicle, were shot at
by the IDF in two separate incidents in daylight away from any combat activity.[145]

The Expanding Buffer Zone

Satellite
images since 2000 of Rafah reduced to a substandard quality of two-meter
resolution[146]
show a pattern of destruction along the length of the border that has resulted
in the creation and widening of a buffer zone empty of Palestinians, homes, and
other structures, now extending two to three hundred meters from the border.

Satellite
imagery taken in 2000 before the armed uprising shows a patrol corridor twenty
to forty meters wide used by the IDF along the border.The corridor was bounded on one side by the
Gaza/Egypt border and on the other by a concrete wall, 2.5 to 3 meters high,
topped with barbed wire.The IDF
conducted regular patrols using armored vehicles inside the corridor and
maintained fortifications on the border.

By late
2002, after the destruction of several hundred houses in Rafah, the IDF began
building an eight meter high metal wall along the border.The wall also extends two meters underground,
not far enough to block most tunnels.This wall, now 1.6 kilometers long,

Map 3: Buffer Zone Expansion

faces the
parts of Rafah that used to be closest to the border.Such a structure would have greatly enhanced
the security of IDF patrols by allowing armored vehicles to patrol without
being seen by Palestinian snipers, while fortified IDF towers in the patrol
corridor and built along the wall could monitor and respond to attacks on the
wall from Rafah.Other security measures
permitted under international law, such as restricting access to areas near the
wall or taking control of property[147]
along it (i.e. seizing homes and closing them off in a reversible manner),
could have supplemented these moves.Instead of attempting any of these measures, the IDF resorted to
demolitions en masse, without warning, often in the middle of the night.

Most importantly,
the IDF built the wall inside the
demolished area, some eighty to ninety meters from the border.Such an expansion doubled the width of the
patrol corridor and was not required to safeguard the border, as the previous
twenty to forty meter-wide patrol corridor was amply wide enough for multi-lane
use by armored vehicles: For example, the IDF's Merkava tank, is 3.72 meters
wide, while Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers, used in demolition operations,
are 4.58 meters wide without armor.

-

A distraught Rafah
resident, bottom left, sits in the rubble of his former home, destroyed by the
IDF in May. Behind him stands the metal wall, eight meters high and 1.6
kilometers long, that the IDF built eighty to ninety meters north of the
border. Intended to enhance the security of Israeli forces on the border, the
tempo of house demolitions increased dramatically after its completion in early
2003. 2004 Marc
Garlasco/Human Rights Watch

Although the
metal wall was built to enhance the security of Israeli forces on the border,
the tempo of demolitions increased dramatically after it was completed in early 2003 (see Graph 1).From the beginning of the uprising in
September 2000 until the end of November 2002, the IDF demolished a monthly
average of 13.9 houses in Rafah.During
2003, this figure tripled to 47.8 homes per month.The increase continued in 2004, with a
monthly average of 78 homes demolished during the first seven months of the
year.[148]In theory, the destruction of homes would
bring some improvement to the security of Israeli forces on the border,
although at the cost of destroying hundreds of homes and rendering thousands of
civilians homeless.However, because the
IDF built the metal wall several dozen meters inside the demolished area, it has effectively created a new
"starting point" for justifying further demolitions.As of late May, the last rows of remaining
homes in Rafah were between 100 and 200 meters from the wall, or 200 to 300
meters from the border.This trend is
difficult to reconcile with the stated need to demolish houses to ensure the
safety of Israeli forces on the border.

GRAPH
1: House Demolitions in Rafah by Month, October 2000-June 2004[149]

-source: PCHR

The Block O neighborhood, a densely populated area
consisting mostly of one-story refugee dwellings, has borne the brunt of the
destruction.According to the Gaza-based
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which closely monitors and documents
house demolitions, the Israeli military destroyed 426 homes in Block O between
October 2000 and the end of June 2004.

The western
side of O Block (facing the border) is 350 meters in length. In April 2000 the
IDF patrol corridor measured an average of thirty-three meters in width, from
the border with Egypt
to the concrete wall at the edge of Block O.In total the satellite imagery comparison of Block O between April 2000
and May 29, 2004
shows that 60% of this area of Rafah was damaged.Ground-level assessments by Human Rights
Watch researchers indicate extensive damage that is not discernible at
two-meter resolution.

Starting in
2003, Block J became another major focus of destruction, with at least 225
homes demolished there.Demolitions have
also spread to border neighborhoods such as Salam, Block L, and Qishta.

New Realities: Widening the Buffer Zone

The need for
a buffer zone empty of Palestinians in Rafah is not a new concept in Israeli
strategic doctrine, which has often emphasized the importance of retaining the
external boundaries of the OPT in any final peace agreement.While head of the IDF Southern Command in the
early years of the occupation, General Ariel Sharon proposed the creation of
settlements (which he referred to as "Jewish fingers") to break up the
territorial contiguity of Palestinian cities in the Gaza Strip and thus
strengthen Israel's control over the area.He also believed that "it was essential to create a Jewish buffer zone
between Gaza and the Sinai [then under Israeli
control] to cut off the flow of smuggled weapons and looking forward to a
future settlement with Egypt
to divide the two regions."[150]Although the "disengagement" plan would
necessitate an abandonment of the Gaza
settlements, the idea of the buffer zone along the border remains and is being
gradually implemented.

In more
recent years, high-level Israeli officials have spoken publicly of the need to
expand the buffer zone by destroying all houses within a certain distance of
the border.Increasing the distance
between the homes and the border would make attacks on patrols and tunneling
more difficult, they say.

Under
international law, an Occupying Power may take a wide range of measures to
improve its general security, including building fortifications and restricting
movements of the civilian population, but destruction must be linked to
combat.Border patrol operations by
themselves are not by themselves combat operations.Even if fighting in a particular area of the
border reaches a level of regularity equivalent to an ongoing state of
hostilities, the IDF is permitted to attack only those specific homes that were
making an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction would
have offered a definite military advantage.In cases of doubt, under international humanitarian law, objects
normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as houses, are presumed not to be
military objectives.[151]Destroying homes simply because they are
within weapons range of IDF positions is accordingly unlawful.Given the evidence presented that the homes
were mostly inhabited, these areas retain their overall civilian character and
cannot be lawfully razed wholesale.[152]

In January
2002, the IDF demolished a group of houses in Block O, the largest destruction
operation during the uprising until that time.Twenty-one "mostly uninhabited" buildings were torn down and one tunnel
was found, said Major-General Doron Almog, head of the IDF Southern Command at
the time and responsible for operations in the Gaza Strip.[153]But UNRWA, PCHR, and the Israeli human rights
organization B'tselem estimated that approximately sixty houses had been
destroyed and they presented evidence that most were inhabited at the time.[154]The international community largely saw the
demolitions as retaliation for the killing of four Israeli soldiers the
previous day by Hamas at an outpost more than eight kilometers outside of
Rafah, at Kerem Shalom near the Gaza Strip.Israeli officials repeatedly insisted that the demolitions had been
planned weeks earlier and were unconnected to this attack.[155]

At the time,
senior military officers were frank about the need to expand the buffer zone
and to destroy houses as a precautionary security measure.According to Major-General Almog, the
operation served several purposes:

The
direct intentions of this operation were to weaken the fear of the existence of
tunnels underneath the Termit post, to create better observation [of?]
territories for the forces and to limit the mobility of the terrorists who are
trying to approach the road and injure IDF soldiers.The need to expose and to enlarge the IDF's
area of activity of operations on the Philadelphia
became grater [sic] since the beginning of the current events, there is no
doubt about that, the question is concerning the timing.On the same Saturday a tunnel was found which
proves operational necessity that exists there all the time.[156]

Almog's
predecessor as head of the Southern Command, Major-General Yom-Tov Samiya, was
more blunt.Samiya reportedly gave an
interview on Israeli radio in which he spoke of demolitions as a "long-term
policy."He also advocated acts of
collective punishment, which are strictly prohibited under international
humanitarian law[157]:

The IDF
has to pull down all the houses along a 300-400 meter strip.No matter what the final settlement will be
in the future, that will be the border with Egypt. Arafat should be punished
and after every attack, two to three rows of houses should be demolished.[158]

After five
soldiers were killed in an APC near Block O on May 12, 2004, the idea of widening the buffer
zone was again publicly discussed in Israel, from the highest levels of
government down.

The day
after the incident, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz[159],
and other officials approved a plan to demolish "dozens or perhaps hundreds" of
homes to widen the corridor three hundred meters or more.According to one unnamed Israeli official,
"It's a measure that we are taking to provide better protection for armored
personnel carriers and the soldiers, and to reshape that theatre of war so we
will enjoy an advantage and not the Palestinians."[160]In a cabinet meeting on May 16, IDF Chief of
Staff Lieutenant-General Moshe Ya'alon reportedly spoke of the need to demolish
hundreds of homes, while Mofaz said that Israel would create a "new reality"
along the border.[161]

In an
unambiguous statement of policy, an IDF briefing document on Rafah tunnels
announced, "In order to prevent weapons smuggling, the IDF is widening the
Philadelphi route in order to maintain the integrity of the internationally
recognized border, to prevent terrorism, and to protect Israelis and
Palestinians from terrorism."[162]

As
international criticism over IDF actions in Rafah peaked, the formal plan to
widen the route was delayed.On May 20,
Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell that the plan would not be carried out.[163]Also on May 20, Attorney General Menachem
Mazuz asked the IDF to revise the plan, arguing that it would not pass
international or domestic legal tests.[164]According to press reports, the IDF has since
debated offering compensation to owners of demolished homes under such a plan.[165]The IDF is also reportedly considering
inviting Mazuz and Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak to tour the route
to convince them of the need for further destruction.[166]No decisions have been announced on the
proposed plan.

IDF
commanders on the ground have voiced their desire to wipe away rows of housing
to reduce risks faced by their forces."I'd eliminate at least another 200 meters of houses, leaving my
soldiers outside anti-tank weapon range," said Colonel Pinhas "Pinky" Zuaretz,
in June 2004, while still head of Israeli forces in the southern Gaza Strip.[167]

According to
Zuaretz's replacement, Colonel Yehoshua Rynski, the IDF has recommended to the
Defense Ministry that the buffer zone be widened to three hundred meters.[168]Rynski appeared to be speaking of demolishing
all homes within three hundred meters of the IDF wall i.e., nearly four
hundred meters from the border since most of the Palestinian homes within
three hundred meters of the border itself have already been destroyed and one
of the purposes of the demolitions is to put greater distance between IDF positions
and the camp.[169]According to Rynski, the IDF has "grave
suspicions"[170]
that Palestinian armed groups are smuggling rockets and surface-to-air missiles
into Rafah that are far more sophisticated than the homemade rockets currently
being used.So far, there is no evidence
suggesting that such weapons have reached the Gaza Strip, and the IDF did not
claim that this has happened; both Palestinian armed groups and the IDF have
told Human Rights Watch that such weapons would have been used already had they
arrived.Foreign diplomats with whom
Human Rights Watch spoke have expressed skepticism about the likelihood of such
weapons entering Rafah through Egypt
in the foreseeable future.

In such a
densely populated area, widening the buffer zone to this extent would affect
hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian homes.Based on an analysis of satellite imagery,
Human Rights Watch estimates that a buffer zone extending four hundred meters
from the border would result in destroying approximately 30 percent of the
central camp.This would result in the displacement
of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, already living in one of the
most densely populated areas on earth.

The
indiscriminate destruction of entire neighborhoods of Rafah would result in the
forced displacement of tens of thousands of people.The IDF's "grave suspicions" of more advanced
weapons possibly entering Rafah through Egypt at an indeterminate point in time
in undetermined circumstances cannot justify actions that, under international
law, must be "absolutely necessary" for combat activities.Moreover, as demonstrated in this report (see
Chapter 4), Israeli forces should be able to effectively prevent smuggling
through tunnels using less destructive means.

Plans for
expanding the buffer zone accelerate in tandem with preparations for
"disengagement."The plan explicitly
envisions the possibility of further demolitions in Rafah on the basis of vague
"security considerations" without making any reference to actual combat.As Article 6 of the plan states:

The State
of Israel will continue to maintain a military presence along the border
between the Gaza Strip and Egypt
(Philadelphi Route).This presence is an essential security
requirement. At certain locations, security considerations may require some
widening of the area in which the military activity is conducted.[171]

Map 4 : Existing and Proposed Buffer Zones

Impact of Destruction

Whether
along the border or deeper into the camp, house and property destruction in
Rafah has had a severe impact on the community.Most concretely, homelessness places a heavy burden on poor families,
who are forced to rent or buy new homes, or in many cases live with relatives.Trauma, tension, and anxiety have risen, as
has violence at home and in schools.Malnutrition and physical illnesses are serious concerns for the
international agencies that already keep much of the Gaza Strip afloat through
programs and aid.

In the
aftermath of the May incursions, documented in detail below, UNRWA temporarily
housed approximately two thousand five hundred people in three of its schools,
with up to fifty people in one room.That number dwindled as families found alternative housing with
relatives, rented new homes or occupied empty spaces in town, but UNRWA noticed
a "relatively slow movement" out of their schools, indicating a saturation of
the housing market.[172]

A Rafah family's
sleeping room at a UN school in July, two months after the IDF destroyed 298
homes. Rafah is one of the most densely populated towns in the world, and
housing is in short supply. 2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

The
demolitions have dramatically reduced available housing in what was already one
of the most densely populated areas on earth.Funds are available to rebuild approximately one thousand housing units
barely half of what has been destroyed.Construction, however, has been delayed in part because of the lack of
available land in the Gaza Strip.In
other cases, rebuilt homes remain vacant due to the danger posed by nearby IDF
bases.

Fathiya
Abdul Rahman Abu Tueor, for example, was one of six families still living in
the al-Khansaa elementary school when Human Rights Watch visited on July
15.She explained how she and her family
had fled their house in Block O when a tank knocked down a wall on May 12."It was totally destroyed," she said."We lost everything, all our furniture, our
books and even our IDs."For one month
afterwards, thirty people slept in one room at the school, but by July they
were down to ten.[173]

In the same
school, Sabreen Faramawi from Block O, who fled on May 12 when her house was
hit by IDF shelling, complained how difficult it was to find a new home."We have no plans for the future.There are no empty flats in Rafah.It will cost U.S.$ 140-150 per month she
said."And it will not be like our old
house, it will be small and without necessities.We are calling out for help but nobody pays
attention.We have no water and we have
to buy it from the store."[174]

-

Qifaya Abu Shar and
her family was living in the UN's Boys Prep B school two months after IDF
forces destroyed their Brazil
home on May 19. Five members of the family hid in a back room as a bulldozer
destroyed part of their home. "I was amazed the sun rose and we were still
alive," she said. 2004
Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

In Boys Prep
B school, Qifaya Abu Shar explained how she and her family were awakened
abruptly on the night of May 19 when a bulldozer knocked down their neighbor's
house in Brazil.Five members of the family hid in a back room
as the bulldozer destroyed part of their home."I was amazed the sun rose and we were still alive," she said.They went to the UNRWA school when the army
withdrew.At first, six families lived
in one room, she said, about fifty people.By July ten people were sleeping in one room.[175]

In addition
to those made homeless, some families remained in their homes near the border
despite the constant shooting and risk of military incursion.Mahmoud Fathi said that he and his family
stayed in their house in Block J, in view of the Philadelphi Route and one of the few
houses in the area still intact, because they had no money to live someplace
else."No one can live upstairs because
a bullet can come at any moment," he told Human Rights Watch."But the ground floor is protected by rubble
from houses destroyed in Rainbow.This was
one of the most affected areas.Like
always, they used the tunnels as an excuse to destroy the neighborhood."[176]

Human Rights
Watch also met residents who slept with relatives in cramped homes and spent
days in and around their damaged or destroyed homes, where they enjoyed more
space and proximity to friends.Naim Abu
Jarida, for example, told Human Rights Watch that a bulldozer had destroyed his
house just west of the Rafah zoo on May 19.The family had fled temporarily the day before and all their possessions
were lost.UNRWA gave the family money
to rent a new home but they spent their days at the remains of their old house,
a pile of concrete, lounging under a makeshift shelter of aluminum siding.[177]

One man,
Jamal Radwan, thirty-seven years-old, had lived in Block O for thirty-three
years.His house was partially destroyed
on March 17, 2004,
but it remained livable for Jamal and seven family members, he told Human
Rights Watch.That ended in May 2004,
when IDF bulldozers destroyed the rest of his house, leaving only a fractured
piece of white.

-

Jamal Radwan in
front of where his house in Block O stood until the IDF destroyed it on May 14.
"I still come every day to Rafah because my whole life is in Rafah,"
he said. Block O used to extend to the edge of the Israeli patrol corridor but
successive demolitions since 2000 have wiped away large portions of the
neighborhood.

2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

When Human
Rights Watch met Radwan, he was sitting by himself on a stoop in Block O near
his demolished home.He lived with his
brother in a house several kilometers north of Rafah outside of Khan Yunis, he
said, but "I still come every day to Rafah because my whole life is in Rafah.I can't live in Khan Yunis.I come here to see the people."

Because he
and his family were living with his brother, they were not eligible for a new
house from UNRWA, Radwan said, showing a letter from UNRWA to that effect.He used to run a fruit and vegetable shop
near Salah al-Din gate, but it was demolished in November 2003, and now work is
hard to find."I'm living with my
brother but sooner or later I need to rent an apartment," he said."He can't support me forever."[178]

VI. A VIOLENT SEASON: DESTRUCTION IN RAFAH, MAY 2004

In May 2004,
while Israeli society debated the merits of Ariel Sharon's proposal to
"disengage" from the Gaza Strip and a handful of West Bank
settlements, the IDF launched a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip that
resulted in widespread destruction unprecedented in the current uprising.

Rafah bore
the brunt.During forays into the camp,
the IDF razed entire rows of houses along the buffer zone and destroyed
extensively deep inside Rafah.Armored
Caterpillar D9 bulldozers plowed through houses and shops, indiscriminately ripped
up roads, destroyed water and sewage systems, and turned agricultural fields
into barren patches of earth.Fifty-nine
Palestinians were reportedly killed in Rafah during a series of incursions from
May 12-24, including eleven people under age eighteen and eighteen armed men.[179]In total, these incursions left 254 houses
destroyed and nearly 3,800 people homeless; another forty-four houses were
razed in the Rafah area during the same month in smaller operations.May 2004 witnessed a level of destruction
unprecedented in Gaza
during the uprising the number of homes destroyed that month was 8.75 times
the monthly average for Rafah.[180]

Most of the
destruction took place between May 18 and 24 during the major incursions into
Tel al-Sultan and Brazil.Instead of attempting to control the heart of
the camp as many residents expected, the IDF focused its attack on specific
neighborhoods whose wide streets facilitated the movement of their forces and
would have deprived Palestinian gunmen of cover to move undetected.Israeli forces converged from multiple
directions, quickly overwhelming armed resistance with Apache helicopter
gunships and Merkava tanks.Based on
interviews with the IDF, two Palestinian armed groups, international aid
agencies and residents of Rafah, as well as physical examination of the town,
Human Rights Watch found little evidence of a sustained battle or resistance in
Rafah during the incursions into Tel al-Sultan and Brazil.Instead, extensive destruction of
infrastructure and property occurred mostly in areas already under direct
Israeli control.Human Rights Watch's
research strongly indicates that the nature and scope of the destruction could
not have been justified by absolute military necessity.One of the most egregious examples was in the
neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan, where two large agricultural fields were
destroyed after the area was effectively secured (see below).

During the
May 18-24 incursions, the IDF says it found three[181]
tunnel entrances: One was in the vicinity of the Termit outpost in the buffer
zone.Another, in the Brazil neighborhood, was an
incomplete shaft that Rafah residents say had already been sealed by the PNA
weeks earlier (see Chapter 4).The third
was in the town of Dahaniya,
located four kilometers outside Rafah and not connected to any demolitions.[182]The IDF reportedly killed thirty-two
Palestinian civilians, of whom ten were under age eighteen, as well as twelve
armed fighters.According to UNRWA
statistics, the IDF destroyed 166 houses, leaving 2,085 people homeless.

Rampage in Rafah: An Overview

On May 12,
an IDF armored personnel carrier (APC) was destroyed in the Rafah buffer zone
near Block O, apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade.The APC was heavily laden for explosives to
be used in an antitunneling operation.It is unclear whether the APC was on its way to an incursion into the
camp or if it was to be used inside the buffer zone only.The powerful explosion killed five soldiers
and showered the area with fragments.The military wing of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

The attack
on the APC more than doubled the number of Israeli fatalities in Rafah over the
past four years.And it came one day
after the death of six soldiers in an APC during an incursion into the GazaCity
neighborhood of Zaytoun.The
back-to-back incidents with eleven deaths prompted calls for both strong action
and accelerating the "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.

Shortly
after the APC was destroyed in Rafah, IDF troops entered the buffer zone to
collect the soldiers' remains.Within
hours, tanks, Caterpillar D9s, and helicopters moved against Block O on the
evening of May 12, firing shells and missiles as residents fled.Rafah residents interviewed by Human Rights
Watch saw small groups of armed fighters approaching Block O as they fled.The flight of the civilians under IDF fire,
leaving few eyewitnesses, makes a detailed assessment of the nature and extent
of hostilities in Block O difficult.The
IDF insists that soldiers engaged in the recovery operation came under constant
fire from the area.While there were
hostilities in Block O, the nature and extent of the destruction suggest that
bulldozing was indiscriminate and excessive.The IDF demolished several rows of houses in Block O, including homes
that had been separated from the buffer zone by several others.As nearly all of the housing in this area had
been composed of one-story houses and were located on level ground, it is
unlikely these homes could have been used to fire at the APC or the recovery
teams.

On the
second day of the incursion, Israeli forces moved into Qishta, a neighborhood
next to Rafah, also facing the border, and spent one day methodically
bulldozing shops and small houses, while commandeering taller buildings as
sniper outposts.Many residents did not
expect an incursion there and were still at home, as Qishta has experienced
relatively few demolitions.Eyewitnesses
insisted that Palestinian fighters were not operating in the area, and Human
Rights Watch researchers found no evidence of battle damage on the sides of
remaining buildings that did not face the border.The IDF also destroyed homes that were
several rows from the buffer zone; some homes were demolished even though their
view to the buffer zone was obstructed by taller buildings that are still
standing.Two Israeli soldiers were
killed in Qishta and two more wounded late in the operation, but they were
apparently shot by snipers stationed outside of Qishta.

Map 5: IDF Operations in Rafah May 2004

By the time
the IDF left Block O and Qishta on the morning of May 15, it had demolished at
least eighty-eight houses.[183]During the two-day incursion, fifteen
Palestinians, one of whom was under fifteen years old, were killed, mostly by
helicopter-launched missiles in other parts of Rafah; according to press
reports, six of the dead were armed fighters.[184]

As the IDF
tore away the edges of Block O and Qishta, high-level Israeli officials
approved plans to widen the buffer zone by demolishing "dozens or perhaps
hundreds" of homes (see previous chapter).[185]After an outbreak of international criticism,
the government decided not to implement the plan immediately but continued to
prepare for a large-scale assault on Rafah.The main stated aim of the operation then became the destruction of
smugglers' tunnels.

On May 17,
the IDF launched "Operation Rainbow," the first division-level offensive in the
Gaza Strip during the current uprising.It primarily targeted two areas: Tel al-Sultan, on the northwest
outskirts of Rafah; and the Brazil
and Salam neighborhoods, in eastern Rafah, closer to the border.To the surprise of many residents and members
of armed organizations interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the IDF did not enter
the densely populated center of Rafah, including areas such as Shabura and
Yibna, where armed organizations had concentrated fighters and prepared
roadside bombs.

Both Tel
al-Sultan and Brazil
are housing projects built in the 1970s to resettle Palestinian refugees who
were displaced, many for the second time, by house demolitions in Rafah.In 1971, the IDF Southern Command, then led
by General Ariel Sharon, demolished several hundred houses to widen roads in
the center of Rafah to increase the IDF's control in the camps.[186]The widened streets in Rafah became known
euphemistically as "Sharon Boulevards."Tel al-Sultan and Brazil
were consequently designed by Israeli authorities with these concerns in mind,
including wider streets to facilitate vehicular access.[187]According to one architect's analysis of Tel
al-Sultan written before the current uprising (and which could be applied to Brazil
as well):

...
lessons learned from the 'Iron Fist' policy of suppressing Palestinian
resistance and the thinning out of the refugee camps have been integrated into
the planning of Tel al-Sultan. The street grid of Tel al-Sultan is based
on the 'Sharon Streets' of the early 1970s: the wide perimeter road and the
single transverse road allow for easy access for military vehicles. From
these main roads, there is no single blind alley. All the secondary
streets and alleys are oriented towards the primary access roads, allowing for
clear lines of [sic] site from the main roads to anywhere in the camp. A
military patrol can effectively bring the community under complete control
without setting foot in it.[188]

Based on
observation by Human Rights Watch researchers, who covered the areas on foot,
and on satellite imagery, the average width of the streets in these areas was
ten meters, with additional space on either side.A Merkava tank is 3.72 meters wide; a
Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer is 4.58 meters wide without armor.Wide roads also restrict the mobility of
fighters by depriving them of adequate cover and complicating the laying of
explosive devices.The width of the
roads also contradicts a reason given by senior IDF officers for the
destruction in the camp, namely that the streets were too narrow for use by
armored vehicles.[189]

In Brazil,
the IDF bulldozed paths through houses.An IDF officer confirmed to Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces
inside Brazil followed a general directive to avoid roads even those wide
enough to accommodate armored vehicles as much as possible, irrespective of
whether a particular area was believed to be rigged with explosives or
not.

According to
a list of 290 houses destroyed in Rafah in May 2004 prepared by PCHR, at least
ninety percent were one-story dwellings.Unlike in Block O, Brazil
is an area where single and multi-story housing is largely mixed; yet there is
no reason to presume why one-story buildings would be more likely to conceal
tunnel exits or would be more likely to be used by Palestinian attackers.Numerous Rafah residents expressed the belief
that one-story structures were demolished simply because they were easier to
destroy.

Box 3

Destruction
in Rafah: Shifting Justifications

Israeli officials gave different reasons
for the assault on Rafah after the death of five soldiers in the Philadelphi
corridor on May 12.As the operation
continued and international criticism mounted, the justifications for
demolition evolved from the broadly strategic to the narrowly tactical,
relying on claims that became increasingly difficult to confirm.

On May 13, the day after the incident,
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and other top
officials reportedly approved a plan to widen the Philadelphicorridor by destroying "dozens or perhaps
hundreds" of homes.[190]At the same time, the IDF was in the midst
of demolishing homes in Block O, effectively contributing to such an outcome.

When the plan was reported in the
Israeli media the next day, international criticism began to mount.U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "strongly
condemn[ed]" the widespread destruction of homes in the Gaza Strip.[191]Speaking for the E.U. Presidency, Irish
Foreign Minister Brian Cowen called upon Israel to "immediately" halt
demolitions in Rafah.[192]Two days later, during a brief respite in
demolitions, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell voiced opposition to the
"wholesale bulldozing of houses" in Rafah: "We know Israel has a right for
self-defense, but the kind of actions that they're taking in Rafah with the
destruction of Palestinian homes, we oppose."[193]

On May 17, the IDF launched a major
operation aimed at Rafah ("Operation Rainbow") but the goal of widening the
Philadelphi corridor was replaced in public statements with acombination
of objectives: Finding and destroying smuggling tunnels, targeting
"terrorists," and securing the Philadelphi road.The last of these objectives was still
vague enough to include widening of the buffer zone through house
demolitions.[194]

As the operation started, Israeli
officials added another, more urgent reason.On May 18, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Moshe "Bogey" Ya'alon
told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of arms shipments in
the Sinai from Iran
waiting to be smuggled through the tunnels into Gaza.[195]Subsequent leaks to Israeli media mentioned
anti-aircraft missiles and long-range rockets waiting to get in.According to a press report based on one
unnamed IDF source, the arms were brought into the Sinai by, among other
means, tunnels underneath the Suez canal.[196]Israeli Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy"
Lapid said on May 20 that the Rafah operation was necessary to protect
Israeli civilian airliners from anti-aircraft missiles that smugglers were
attempting to bring into Rafah: "If this happens, God forbid, and airplanes
are shot down, people will ask us why we didn't act to stop it."[197]

Israeli officials never explained what
Egyptian authorities were doing about the alleged arms or what ultimately
became of them, citing security concerns.They have made no claims to have captured such weapons.In conversations with Human Rights Watch,
multiple foreign diplomats in Tel Aviv who were briefed about the alleged
cache by the IDF treated the claim with skepticism.A high-ranking Egyptian Ministry of
Interior official interviewed by Human Rights Watch denied the existence of
the shipment.[198]An official with the Multinational Force
and Observers (MFO) that monitors the Egypt-Israel border also had no
knowledge of the alleged arms and said that neither state had asked the MFO
to conduct a search.[199]When asked for information about what
became of the shipment, an IDF spokeswoman declined to provide further
details to Human Rights Watch.[200]Human Rights Watch did not find any further
references to the shipment in public statements by Israeli officials

While few commentators in Israel
questioned the need to combat smuggling tunnels, many saw the assault on
Rafah as excessive, and mainly motivated by an IDF desire to appearstrong
in the event of "disengagement."One
veteran military analyst wrote:

The decision to undertake
the operation 'came from the gut, not the head,' as army idiom puts it; and
its goal was to show the Palestinians what will happen in the future if they
continue to resort to violence after Israel pulls out of the Gaza Strip.
This was an operation undertaken by an angry army.The blowing up of two IDF armored personnel
carriers in the Gaza Strip infuriated the IDF General Staff.[201]

Damage to Israel's international image
concerned even those who supported the operation in principle.As one commentator said:

the operation made us
forget to some extent the feeling of failure and helplessness over the
Palestinian RPG rocket attacks, and returned the initiative to the IDF. [but] in the world which has already
completely forgotten the attacks on the armored personnel carriers the
operation resulted in heavy public relations damage.And in this case, the price was heavy
because in addition to the fact that it required thousands of soldiers, the
terrible pictures of the demolished houses in Rafah and their pitiful owners
among the ruins touched many hearts in Israel as well, and made it clear to
the IDF that its scope of legitimacy for drastic actions is limited.[202]

An editorial in the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronoth proclaimed: "In
delicate language, this is 'searing the consciousness' in another phrase
coined by the IDF In slightly less polite language, this is revenge, pure and simple."[203]

After
sealing Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces seized control of
Tel al-Sultan on May 18 and imposed a twenty-four hour curfew.The IDF reportedly killed twenty
Palestinians, fifteen of whom were civilians, and destroyed ten houses in Tel
al-Sultan.Israeli D9 bulldozers
extensively tore up roads, causing severe damage to sewage and water networks.Elsewhere in Rafah, IDF helicopters killed six
Palestinians, including three armed men who were in Block P, adjacent to Block
O and away from Tel al-Sultan.All of
the fighters were killed during the initial phase of the incursion.

On May 19, a
group of several hundred Palestinians marched towards Tel al-Sultan from the
center of Rafah, demonstrating against the incursion there.Israeli tanks and helicopters opened fire on
the crowd, killing nine people, includingthree people under age
eighteen.The IDF did not claim that its
forces had come under fire, but did allege that there were gunmen in the crowd;
Palestinian and foreign eyewitnesses disputed this (see Box 4 below).

Despite
international condemnation of the killings at the protest, the Israeli
incursions accelerated.On the night of
May 19, the IDF invaded Brazil
from the north and east, cutting it off from the center of Rafah.Israeli forces demolished extensively, often
bulldozing paths through houses in order to avoid roads.They also wiped away blocks of housing near
the border, both in Brazil
and Salam, ostensibly in the search for tunnels.Many residents had only moments to leave
their homes, or were inside their homes as demolitions began.According to UNRWA, the IDF destroyed 154
houses in these two neighborhoods, leaving over 1,900 people homeless.Four Palestinian civilians were reportedly
killed, including a three-year-old girl shot near her home and a three-year-old
boy who died of shock from a house demolition.Four armed fighters were also killed by helicopter-launched missiles in
the early hours of the incursion.Another Palestinian civilian was reportedly shot near his house
elsewhere in Rafah.The IDF claimed to
have found three smuggling tunnels, but later clarified that one was an
incomplete shaft and another was outside of Rafah.

On the
morning of May 21, the IDF pulled out of the centers of Tel al-Sultan and Brazil
but maintained a tight cordon.Demolitions continued in Brazil and Salam closer to the border while IDF
D9s razed two large swathes of greenhouses outside Tel al-Sultan over one
kilometer from the border.The operation
came to an end on May 24, as Israeli forces left the area.

In an
overview briefing given to journalists at the close of the operation, the IDF
made no specific references to armed resistance from Palestinians, instead
generally claiming that "the terrorists where shooting from inside populated
houses" and that forty "armed terrorists" had been killed a figure which
would have to assume that every adult male killed was a combatant, as well as
at least four of the child fatalities.[204]The IDF later told Human Rights Watch that
"IDF forces faced attacks from the terrorist activists in the form of automatic
weapons' fire from occupied and abandoned buildings and streets, grenade
attacks, anti-tank fire and high-explosive devices," but was vague as to
whether this description referred to the May 18-24 operations in Tel al-Sultan
and Brazil only or included the May 12-15 incursion into Block O and Qishta as
well.[205]

Based on
extensive interviews with Rafah camp residents, members of armed organizations,
and a review of IDF statements and media reporting, Human Rights Watch finds
that armed resistance in Tel al-Sultan and Brazil was limited at best.The IDF operated in areas where the urban layout
presented the fewest risks and where they were least expected by Palestinians,
including armed groups.In the initial
hours of the incursion, armed gunmen in these areas were quickly overwhelmed by
helicopter gunships, tanks, and snipers as the IDF took control of targeted
neighborhoods.The IDF suffered no
fatalities or injuries during the six days and did not respond to Human Rights
Watch's verbal and written requests for figures on vehicles damaged or destroyed,
incidents of armed confrontation, or IEDs encountered.[206]

By limiting
the scope of the operation to the newer housing projects with their wider
streets, the IDF largely circumvented most of the Palestinian fighters and was
able to keep them at bay by controlling key access points.This contrasts sharply with the April 2002
assault on Jenin refugee camp, in which the IDF attempted to fight its way
through the densely populated heart of the camp, resulting in the death of
fifty-two Palestinians, including twenty-seven confirmed civilians, and thirteen
IDF soldiers and the leveling of the center of the camp.

Rafah
residents and members of armed organizations consistently told Human Rights
Watch that both the neighborhoods and routes chosen by the IDF were a surprise,
and probably calculated to minimize confrontation with armed groups.As one fighter from Islamic Jihad said:

Areas
like Brazil
and Tel al-Sultan are easy for the army to invade.We're waiting for them to come to the center
of the town in Yibna. The places they invaded, it was very difficult for us
to resist there.Tel al-Sultan was
closed off, so what could we do?Brazil,
too, we didn't expect.And Brazil
was sealed off so, in fact, the resistance had no successes [there].[207]

A member of
the Popular Resistance Committees similarly told Human Rights Watch:

Tel
al-Sultan was easy [for the Israeli army].It is surrounded by settlements, it has wide streets, and it was easy to
invade and control.In Tel al-Sultan it
was difficult for the resistance to do its work well. [In Brazil] Some roads they chose were
not anticipated.The roads they took
were not a threat to us.This didn't
affect us.[208]

Consistent
with these claims, a thorough search of media reporting shows only two
communiqus issued by Palestinian groups claiming responsibility for attacks on
IDF forces in Rafah during the May 18-24 incursions: one for an explosive
charge set off against an APC in Tel al-Sultan and another attack on a D9 in
Jnayna neighborhood on May 20.[209]

The scarcity
of evidence indicating combat in the public statements of the IDF and
Palestinian armed groups contrasts sharply with the October 2003 IDF incursions
into Rafah that left 198 homes demolished, also with no IDF fatalities.Statements issued by the military wings of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad at that time, although possibly exaggerated, claimed
credit for six explosive charges against tanks and D9s, two shooting attacks on
IDF troops, and an RPG strike on an Israeli APC.[210]Similarly, an IDF press release on the
October incursions reported that "During the operation, an exchange of fire
erupted, in which two soldiers were lightly wounded.Terrorists detonated dozens of explosives,
hurled dozens of grenades, fired anti-tank missiles, and fired numerous times
at IDF forces from buildings in the area.IDF forces returned fire."[211]

Rafah Incursions by Neighborhood, May 12-24

Block O & Qishta (evening May 12-morning May 15)

Block O is
one of the most densely populated areas of Rafah refugee camp, consisting
mostly of overcrowded one-story concrete homes with asbestos roofs, separated
by very narrow alleys.Block O used to
extend to within several meters of the edge of the Israeli patrol corridor but
successive demolitions since 2000 have wiped away large portions of the
neighborhood.

In little
more than forty-eight hours from the evening of May 12 to the early morning of
May 15, the IDF demolished approximately one hundred houses in the two
areas.In Block O, entire chunks of
refugee dwellings were razed, widening the buffer zone.In Qishta, the IDF razed one-story homes but
left many of the taller buildings standing, leading many to believe that
smaller homes were targeted because they were easier to bulldoze and not
because of absolute military necessity.The IDF also reportedly killed nine Palestinian civilians and six
fighters in various parts of Rafah, many of them killed by missiles launched
from helicopter gunships at Block O as well as other areas.

Human Rights
Watch spoke to a number of residents who heard the explosion of the Israeli APC
in Block O in the late afternoon on May 12.The shock of the explosion soon gave way to fear of revenge.Awad Seidam, who was still living with his
family in the classroom of a local elementary school two months after the
demolition, recalled the incident vividly:

We were
sitting in our houses.There was no
shooting from either side before the explosion.We are used to hearing tanks and APCs coming but everything was quiet
this time. A piece of the vehicle fell into my house, coming through the window.
In minutes, word had spread that an APC had been destroyed.At that moment everyone knew revenge was
coming.I thought to myself, "They kill
us without a reason anyway, so imagine how it will be this time."[212]

Israeli
troops entered the buffer zone shortly after the explosion to recover body
parts of the dead soldiers.Having
experienced multiple incursions, many Block O residents living near the buffer
zone left immediately, leaving few eyewitnesses to the events that
followed.Those who lived in houses
slightly further from the buffer zone stayed until the IDF began an assault on
the area shortly after nightfall with tanks and helicopter gunships.

Sabreen
Faramawi, whose home was separated from the demolished area by three rows of
houses at the time, had several relatives who were injured by shrapnel from the
approaching tanks and helicopters.

The shell
from a tank hit one door [of our house just after we left].I took nothing with me, not ID cards, not
money, food, or anything. We went back right after the withdrawal.The house was completely destroyed. I was
shocked when I saw it.[213]

While local
residents saw small groups of armed Palestinian fighters, usually with fewer
than half a dozen men each, gathering in or near Block O, the extent to which
these fighters attempted to engage Israeli forces is unclear.Human Rights Watch spoke to two residents
who, while fleeing the incursion, saw fighters gathering in small groups in
Block O, though they did not see them fighting.Even if there had been an organized Palestinian resistance, it is
unrealistic to believe that gunmen were shooting from all or even most of the
approximately seventy houses destroyed in Block O, especially those located
several rows away from the edge of the destroyed area

By the
second day of the operation, May 14, Israeli forces began demolishing houses in
the Qishta neighborhood.Located next to
Block O to the east and also facing the border, Qishta is named for the
extended clan that owns much of the area, and was composed of one-story houses
with asbestos roofs and multistory dwellings.The Qishta family is originally from Rafah, and consequently there are
few refugees in the neighborhood.The
area had also experienced relatively few demolitions up until that point, and
many residents remained in their homes during the incursion.

At
approximately 4:00 a.m. on
May 14, a group of Israeli soldiers seized control of a four-story building in
Qishta.Hamdia Qishta, her husband, and
daughter were home at the time; her sons, who live on the other floors, were
abroad, leaving the other apartments in the family-owned building empty:

First
[the soldiers] broke the door down and then let dogs in without soldiers.I saw dogs walking around.They went out and came back again. Then the soldiers came.There were more than ten of them.They asked "Who's around?""Just us three," we said.They told us, "Okay, sit here."I lost track of time.I was afraid. They asked my husband to check the other rooms.But he's sick, so I went to the soldiers
instead.I went up to the other floors
and checked for them.I showed them
there was nothing and they said okay.

After
finishing the search, the soldiers confined Ms. Qishta, her husband, and
daughter to one room on the third floor and started knocking holes in the walls
on the fourth floor for use by snipers.[214]

At dawn, Dr.
Ihsan Qishta was on the roof of his home watching his brother-in-law Ashraf,
aged thirty-seven, move furniture out of his house across the street, which had
been partially demolished hours before.Tanks had begun moving out of the area, and rumors were spreading that
the incursion was over.The interruption
was only temporary, however, and residents soon realized that snipers had set
up positions in Hamdia Qishta's home nearby.As Ihsan Qishta explained:

I saw a
soldier's arm and a sniper rifle [through an opening in the building].The rifle fired three bullets, with fifteen
seconds between each shot.The bullet
was not normal.The whole top of
[Ashraf's] head was taken off. He was hit twice in the heart, once in the
head.I was yelling across the alley at
my brother and they shot at me as well.[215]

Within
hours, the remainder of Ashraf Qishta's house was bulldozed.His body could not be evacuated until the IDF
left the area twenty-four hours later.

Bulldozing
continued in Qishta through May 14.Nadia Sha'er saw five armored bulldozers and more than ten tanks in the
area, destroying the homes of her neighbors as well as shops.The Caterpillar D9s came to her house in the
late afternoon, while she, her mother-in-law, and daughter were inside.She told Human Rights Watch:

[The
bulldozer] smashed through the wall of the sitting room.We were in another room at the time.We made a white flag and left immediately
through the door. We were standing in
the alley and watched two bulldozers destroy the house.It took just a few minutes.There was no warning, no announcement.When I yelled at the bulldozers [to stop],
the tanks pointed their cannons towards me. I lived there for over forty
years.All of our furniture was inside:
the tables, the TV, the chairs, the furniture, the clothes.[216]

Ms. Sha'er
escaped to a three-story building next door, shared by her sons and their
families.The IDF did not try to
demolish it: "It was easier for them to destroy one-story houses," she
said."They hit the corners of high
buildings [with bulldozers].They
destroyed some high buildings but mostly short ones."When Human Rights Watch researchers visited
the area, they noticed that several of the multi-story houses had parts of
their supporting columns knocked away, which residents said had come from the
May incursion.In between the
multi-story buildings were expanses of sand where the one-story houses once
stood.

Also that
afternoon, Palestinian militants killed an IDF soldier in the same apartment
building from which Ashraf Qishta was shot.Another IDF soldier was killed in the attempt to evacuate his wounded
comrade.Hamdia Qishta, who had been
confined with her family to the third-floor apartment since the early morning,
witnessed the shooting of one of the soldiers as he stood guard in her sitting
room:

I heard
one of the soldiers cry out.I went to
him in the main hall to see what happened.I didn't see any blood.The other
[soldiers] were lying on the ground in fear.I tried to wake him up but he didn't answer.I took off his helmet and flak jacket and
found a wound under his left armpit.It
was very small.

The
other soldier was talking on his radio.Two soldiers eventually came with a stretcher.They crawled along the floor towards their
comrade.They were afraid to enter the
hall.I asked them to give me the
stretcher and I put it under the wounded one and asked for their help [to carry
him].I and another soldier carried
him.He was bleeding through the
wound.He was so young, what do you
expect me to do? They carried him down the stairs, and two others stayed with
me.I heard people falling in the
stairwell.I heard later that another
soldier was hit but I didn't see it.All
the soldiers soon left.The whole
incident took maybe half an hour.They
were all very scared.[217]

A Human
Rights Watch researcher examined the sitting room in which Ms. Qishta said the
soldier had been shot.The room had a
large picture window at least 2.5 meters wide facing west that would have been
clearly visible from any of several three- or four-story buildings deep in
Block O or other neighborhoods.

The IDF gave
a different version of what happened in the building: "When an elderly woman
asked permission to bring food into the building, [Staff-Sergeant Rotem] Adam
escorted her to the entrance and was shot and mortally wounded by a sniper when
he opened the door."One of his comrades
was shot and killed in the evacuation attempt and two others wounded.[218]

Around midnight on May 14, the Israeli
Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction against the demolition of a group
of houses in Block O whose owners were represented by Gaza-based human rights
organizations, pending a hearing scheduled for May 16.The injunction allowed demolitions to go
ahead, however, in the event of immediate military necessity, a risk to
soldiers, or a hindrance to a military operation.Around 5:00
a.m. on May 15, the IDF left Block O and Qishta, having demolished
eighty-eight homes, as well as twenty-three shops, a mosque, and a bank.[219]The next day, the Court declined to hear the
petition after the IDF said that it had no intention of demolishing the homes.

Tel al-Sultan (May 18-May 24)

Tel
al-Sultan is a newer neighborhood, a few kilometers west of Rafah's
center.More than one kilometer from the
Egyptian border and abutting the Gush Katif settlement bloc, it is now home to
approximately twenty-five thousand people.The IDF's stated emphasis on tunnel-hunting made the choice of Tel
al-Sultan, approximately one kilometer from the border and where no tunnels
have been known to have been found, a surprising choice to residents.

Palestinian
armed groups said they had lookouts in the neighborhood during the incursion
but few fighters.Hostilities had been
rare in the area because of its distance from the border, and they did not
expect the IDF to invade there.Israeli
forces had never entered the neighborhood en masse until May.

During the
operation, IDF forces destroyed ten homes and damaged 156 others, affecting 1,826
people, according to UNRWA.One of the
houses was apparently bulldozed in a botched punitive demolition.D9 bulldozers and tanks destroyed 75.8% of
the roads and caused extensive damage to water and sewage pipes in the area,
cutting off water for six days.[220]According to the RafahMunicipality,
seventeen of thirty kilometers of water pipes were destroyed and fifteen of
twenty kilometers of sewage pipes were destroyed.The cost to repair the systems, the
municipality said, was U.S.$ 713,900.[221]Two large agricultural areas with greenhouses
were completely razed-in total 298 donums of land (29.8 hectares).[222]

Map
6: Tel al-Sultan 2004

-

IDF
soldiers in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood shot and killed Sabir Abu Libdeh,
aged 13, and wounded his two brothers on May 19 when they violated a curfew
to get water. Caterpillar D9 bulldozers had severed water pipes in the area.
2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

IDF forces
also reportedly killed fifteen Palestinian civilians in the neighborhood,
either by helicopter gunship or gunfire, including three children under age
eighteen.Asma and Ahmed al-Mughayer,
aged fourteen and ten, respectively, were shot while feeding pigeons on their
roof; Sabir Abu Liba, aged thirteen, was killed as he tried to get water.[223]The IDF also reportedly killed five
combatants.Human Rights Watch also
documented one case of the army forcing a civilian to build sandbags.Most dramatically, on May 19 an IDF tank
and helicopter opened fire on a demonstration to protest the destruction in
Tel al-Sultan, killing nine and wounding forty-three.)

The incursion into Tel al-Sultan began in the early morning
of May 18 when IDF soldiers entered the neighborhood backed by armored
vehicles, tanks, and helicopters.Around 4:00 a.m. a
helicopter gunship fired a missile near the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, wounding
two Hamas activists, seventeen-year-old Hany Muhammad Qufeh and
twenty-four-year-old Tariq Ahmed Sheikh al Eid.

Accounts of
the incident vary slightly.According to
local human rights groups and media accounts, Palestinians on their way to
morning prayers went to Qufeh's aid when a second missile struck.[224]Qufeh was killed, as were five others: Tariq Ahmed
Sheikh al-Eid, Ibrahim and Ismail al-Bal'awi (son and father, respectively), and
Muhammed and Ahmed al-Sha'er (brothers).Two more missiles landed in the area, damaging the mosque.A fire destroyed the top-floor library, which
held the largest collection of religious texts in the Gaza Strip.The interior of the library was being
repaired when Human Rights Watch visited the site on July 15, but black streaks
out the windows from the fire were still clear.

According to
the IDF, soldiers spotted several armed Palestinians planting explosives near
the mosque, and ordered the gunship attack.[225]Abu Husayn from Islamic Jihad confirmed that
Palestinian fighters had planted a mine near the mosque, perhaps the work of
Qufeh.Hamas also issued a statement saying
that two of its fighters had died: Hany Qufeh and Tariq al-Eid, but it remains
unclear if the four other individuals were involved.[226]

Around the
same time, three armed activists were reportedly killed in Badr Camp at the
edge of Tel al-Sultan.[227]According to Abu Husayn from Islamic Jihad, a
Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli soldiers in the Badr Camp section of the
neighborhood, but the IDF did not acknowledge these deaths and they could not
be confirmed.Residents in the area had
heard the story but they were unsure if it was true.

By morning,
the IDF had surrounded and sealed Tel al-Sultan with tanks and APCs, forbidding
anyone to enter or leave.Inside,
bulldozers tore up streets, ostensibly to reveal mines or to impede bomb-laden
cars.A trench was dug on the main east-west street
linking Tel al-Sultan to Rafah, known as Beach Road (though access to the sea is
blocked by Israeli settlements).Soldiers occupied multi-story dwellings, placing snipers on the top
floors or roofs with commanding views.

Abdul Sattar
Abu Ghali, who had his three-story home occupied in the early morning of May
18, told Human Rights Watch how IDF soldiers destroyed the outside wall of his
house with a tank, held his family in one room and forced his
twenty-seven-year-old son Wa'el to prepare sandbags for a sniper's nest on the
roof.Such destruction of outside walls
was common in Rafah because it allowed soldiers to enter a building without
exposure in the streets.Forcing a
civilian to perform a task that directly supports military activity is a
violation of humanitarian law.Mr. Abu
Ghali told Human Rights Watch:

Suddenly
we heard the sound of the wall crashing in.Then a tank came in backwards into the front room and the soldiers
jumped in.They opened the inside door
and went straight to the top floor, the third floor.They took my son to the second floor and me
too.All of us were on the second floor,
about twenty-one people.They also
brought another man, Ayman Kurazoon, whom they had taken from his house with
his hands tied behind his back.

They took
my son to the third floor and they spent a lot of time up there and we got
worried.I saw one of the soldiers, a
lieutenant, and I asked him where my son was.He said "he'll be right back."When my son finally came down I asked what he had done.He said the soldiers had made him break up
the floor, take sand and put it in bags, which were used for protection.[228]

Human Rights
Watch saw the spot on the third floor where Abu Ghali said his son had been
forced to dig for sand beneath the tiles.The spot on the roof where Abu Ghali said the snipers had been commanded
a strategic view over a square and playground in front of the Association of
General Services-Canada Camp.According
to local residents, IDF troops were also positioned in another house on the
opposite corner of the square.Human
Rights Watch also saw the destroyed front wall of Abu Ghali's house, where the
tank had backed in.

IDF soldiers in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood forced Wa'el Abu Ghali to
make sandbags for their protection on the top floor of his home, which they
occupied on May 18. His father, Abdul Sattar Abu Ghali, inspects the spot.
2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

Also on the
morning of May 18, IDF armored bulldozers destroyed a one-story house belonging
to the Mehsin family in order to reach a three-story house owned by Sameer
Barud without requiring soldiers to walk in the open.The Barud house has views over the square to
the north of the Bilal Mosque.Approximately thirty family members were huddled on the first floor of
Barud's building, where they thought it was safer, when the soldiers arrived,
breaking down the back door.One of the
men present at the time, who did not want to give his name, explained to Human
Rights Watch how his family members were held in one room for four days:

They blew
open our door and we were all in one room.They searched all of us and the rooms and put us in one room on the
second floor.They only let us go to the
bathroom with a guard. We were there for four days, just sitting.[229]

Human Rights
Watch saw the small room on the second floor in which the family - six men,
five women and nineteen children - was held.Behind the house, to the west, were the mangled remains of the Mehsin
family house that the IDF had destroyed to avoid approaching Sameer Barud's
building from the front.The family was
not aware what the IDF was doing in their house for four days, but they learned
later that snipers had been positioned on their roof, with a view over the
mosque and the open space to its north.According to one media report, soldiers used Sameer Barud as a human
shield, forcing him to go downstairs to check for Palestinian militants.[230]When the soldiers left the house after four
days, the family discovered broken windows, doors and furniture.

-

The IDF destroyed
the Mehsin family home, rubble in foreground, to clear a path to the
three-story building owned by Sameer Barud. They stayed for four days, holding
thirty family members in one room. 2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

With Tel
al-Sultan secured, the IDF declared a twenty-four hour curfew and began
house-to-house searches.IDF soldiers on
loudspeakers ordered men over the age of sixteen to gather at a school.Policemen from the PNA were told to come into
the street with their weapons above their heads for reasons that are unclear.

Box 4

The
Demonstration in Tel al-Sultan: Nine
Killed and Forty-Three Wounded

On March 19, several thousand
demonstrators gathered in Rafah near the al-Awda Mosque to protest the IDF's
siege of Tel al-Sultan.Around 2:00
p.m. they set out along the main street toward the neighborhood demanding to
enter Tel al-Sultan.Approximately 500
meters from the entrance to the neighborhood, an Israeli tank and helicopter
opened fire, killing nine Palestinians, including three people under age
eighteen. Fifty others were wounded.The IDF alleged there were gunmen in the crowd, although it did not
claim to have come under fire.At
first, "four to five" of the victims were "armed terrorists," the government
said.[231]The IDF later reduced the number to one.[232]After further questioning by Human Rights
Watch, an IDF spokesman said that one of those killed, Alaa' Musalam
al-Sheikh 'Eid, was listed in IDF records as a "Hamas activist" but he did
not reiterate the claim that 'Eid had been armed at the time.[233]Eyewitnesses and Palestinian human rights
groups said all the victims were civilians.

According to a five minute, fifty-three
second video provided by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and viewed
by Human Rights Watch, a crowd of men and boys was marching down the street
shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" (God is Great!)In the crowd, no weapons can be seen.A helicopter is seen overhead shooting flares; such flares, however,
are designed to divert heat-seeking missiles rather than to deter protesters
and were likely not to have been noticed by many people in the crowd.Suddenly, there is gunfire and people head
for cover.A few seconds later, with
an edit in the video, there is a large boom from a tank shell.Men are seen carrying off bloody bodies,
some of them children.One minute and
fifty seconds of uncut video later, there is a second boom.Ambulances arrive shortly thereafter to
remove the wounded.

The IDF said a helicopter gunship
launched a missile at a nearby open area to deter the protesters, which
included armed men, and tanks subsequently fired at an abandoned structure
near the crowd.The IDF also claimed
that it used flares to warn the protestors against proceeding toward Tel
al-Sultan.[234]In contrast, eyewitnesses told Human Rights
Watch that the killings were not preceded by any warning fire, and that the
shelling continued as protestors sought to evacuate the wounded.Even if warning shots had been fired, the
use of a helicopter missile and four tank shells without pause in a populated
area constituted an excessive and unnecessary use of force.

A Dutch photographer present at the
demonstration said there were two armed Palestinians in the crowd but they
left as the protest approached Israeli troops.He told the al-MezanCenter
for Human Rights:

I heard and saw no firing at
the Israelis from within the demonstration.The first explosion I heard was huge, and it targeted the front of the
demonstration.There were numerous
casualties.I heard flares of gunfire
from Israeli troops as the mass of civilians continued to march.The Israelis fired no warning missiles near
the demonstration before this.Then I
heard several explosions and saw people running everywhere.I saw what looked to be about fifty
casualties; many of them children.[235]

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe
Ya'alon admitted an error, but claimed that armed men were using civilians as
a human shield."Unfortunately, a
mistake was made this week when gunfire was directed for deterrence purposes
against a demonstration and this incident ended with Palestinian fatalities
and wounded," he told Israeli Television."We certainly regret this incident, but we did not create this
situation. This is a situation with which we have to deal. It is not us who
turned civilians into human shields for the terrorists; it is not us who are
sending civilians against our soldiers with armed men hiding behind them."[236]

When asked why the demonstrators were
fired upon, Col. Pinhas Zuaretz, the Israeli commander for the Southern Gaza
Strip did not claim that the troops were fired upon or threatened by
gunmen.Instead, he told a journalist:
"there is no way on earth that you can allow [protesters] to climb on a
tank.Photographs of Palestinians
climbing on an Israeli tank will be seen all over the world."

Zuaretz also claimed that his troops had
attempted to deter the protesters using various means."They asked them nicely to stop through the
DCO [Israeli-Palestinian DistrictCoordinating Office].It had no effect.A reconnaissance helicopter came in.No effect.They fired shots.No
effect.Then the helicopter fired at
an open field.Nothing.The commander fired his machine gun.Nothing.The procession stopped for a moment and then continued.The tank commander did not see the
demonstrators, but he identified an empty building that he believed was far
away from them and fired. One shell four shells."

The journalist asked why it was
necessary to fire four shells, especially when the tank could not see the
demonstrators."I still say that he
did not intend to hurt anyone," Col. Zuaretz replied."As far as he was concerned, he did
everything he could to avoid causing harm.Still, I must say that had I been in his place, I would have waited
after the first shell.After it
happened, I told him myself that he should have waited and determined what
happened after firing each shell, especially considering that his view of the
demonstration was blocked."[237]

After international and domestic
condemnation, the IDF conducted an internal investigation, which found no
wrong-doing by the soldiers involved or their commander. The details of the
investigation were not made public.

Even in a context of belligerent
occupation, the control of crowds and demonstrations falls squarely under the
purview of law and order activities governed by international human rights
law.The shelling of the demonstration
contravenes important principles of human rights law about the use of force
and the dispersal of assemblies, irrespective of whether they are
lawful.The U.N. Basic Principles on
the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which applies to
militaries when they police demonstrations, sets out those essential
principles.The Principles require
that security forces, in carrying out their duty, shall as far as possible
apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force. Whenever the
lawful use of force is unavoidable, law enforcement officials must use
restraint and restrict such force to the minimum extent necessary.The legitimate objective should be achieved
with minimal damage and injury, and with respect for the preservation of
human life.Lethal firearms can
intentionally be used only when strictly unavoidable in order life.[238]

Over the
next two days, May 18 and 19, the IDF killed fifteen Palestinian civilians
according to both the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and the al-MezanCenter for Human Rights.

The local
hospital and ambulance drivers reported IDF restrictions on the movement of
medical staff.Due to the siege on Rafah
and the minimum capacity of the local AbuYousefal-NajjarHospital,
bodies were stored for five days in shops and a vegetable refrigerator.

In one case
investigated by Human Rights Watch, three brothers from the Abu Libda family
were shot by snipers on May 19 while trying to get water, and one of them was
killed.According to family members, the
water in Tel al-Sultan was cut off from the beginning of the incursion, and the
family's water tank on the roof had been damaged by gunfire or shrapnel.To get water, Ayub, aged twenty-five, Yusuf,
aged sixteen, and Sabir, aged thirteen, went with bottles to another brother's
house a few meters away, despite the curfew.They were shot when they stepped out the door.A fifth brother, Ibrahim Abu Libda, told
Human Rights Watch what he saw:

Sabir was
the first one.They were on the street
next to our house and the first bullet hit Sabir in the heart.Yusuf was second and he got three bullets: in
the abdomen, right arm and back.Third
was Ayub.He was hit in the right arm.
I was with them but I entered the house first.I got in and the shooting started.I first heard the shooting and then Sabir screaming.He ran inside the house and died there.Ayub ran inside too but Yusuf fell in the
street.He was near the door and I
pulled him in.[239]

Human Rights
Watch inspected the site of the shooting, a few meters from the Abu Libda's
front door, northeast of the Bilal Mosque.To the west, across the square, in clear view, was the three-story house
of Sameer Barud (see above) that the IDF had occupied the day before the
shooting.The snipers on the roof would
have had a clear shot down the alley to the Abu Libda house.An Israeli army spokesman told the Washington
Post that the IDF was "likely responsible" for the shooting.[240]According to media reports and human rights
groups, IDF tanks delayed the ambulance holding the three brothers, and Sabir
died before reaching the hospital.In
apparent recognition of fault, the wounded Yusuf Abu Libda was taken for
treatment to a hospital in Jerusalem.

Over the
next few days, the most extensive property destruction was at two large
agricultural areas full of greenhouses, both more than one kilometer from the
border and not near any settlements.According to Mezan, the fields were razed starting on May 22, after the
IDF pulled out of the center of Tel al-Sultan and continued through May 23.[241]

'Ala al-Din Faiz Buraika
watched the destruction from his home adjacent to the western-most agricultural
area when it began, he said, on May 20."No one could get out or in, tanks were surrounding the area," he told
Human Rights Watch."They surrounded Tel
al-Sultan and cut it from the town.They
used bulldozers and tanks, with Apaches protecting them from above.They spent three days destroying the
greenhouses, which grew onions, melons and flowers."The land, more than 250 donums (25 hectares),
was owned by five families, Buraika said.[242]His family alone lost fifteen donums (1.5
hectares) of greenhouses, with a total value of U.S. $150,000.[243]

Human Rights
Watch heard a similar story from residents near the other large agricultural
area to the east, who witnessed the destruction by D9 bulldozer over two
days.According to Ayman Dahliz:

It was
the third day of the invasion.I was at
home.The bulldozers came without reason
and started to destroy everything.Three
of them were supported by three tanks.It took two days to destroy the fields.The owners were the Agla and Dahliz families.They grew tomatoes, flowers and cucumbers in
the greenhouses.In total there were 250
donums of greenhouses.[244]

Human Rights
Watch inspected both agricultural areas in Tel al-Sultan.Both were devoid of any greenhouses, only
ruptured earth littered with metal and glass remains.When asked why the agricultural land had been
destroyed, the IDF responded that military vehicles had traveled through fields
to avoid booby-traps on the main roads.[245]This does not explain why bulldozers with
helicopter cover deliberately and systematically destroyed agricultural areas
over a period of approximately two days.According to all witness testimonies, the IDF faced no resistance at the
time and Human Rights Watch could not identify any discernable military purpose
for the destruction.

Israeli
troops pulled back from the center of Tel al-Sultan on May 21, allowing
residents to emerge from their houses for food and water but continuing to
control the perimeter.Families of the
injured and killed went to the hospital in Rafah for news.A funeral for victims was held on May 24
after the IDF had withdrawn from Rafah completely.

During the
incursion, the IDF announced that it had demolished the family home of Ibrahim
Hamaad, a Palestinian militant who had killed five Israeli settlers, including
four children, before being killed by the IDF on May 2.But when the operation ended, it became clear
that the army had destroyed the wrong house.

"People
here left because they knew the Israelis would come destroy the Hamaad house
[and] the Hamaad family left their house the day after the operation because
they knew that it would be destroyed," said Mahmoud Abu Arab, who lived across
a narrow street from the Hamaad family. When Mr. Abu Arab's family returned, however,
they found that the Hamaad house had been spared and theirs had been
destroyed.Human Rights Watch
researchers visited the Abu Arab house, whose front walls were torn away, with
much of the bottom floor bulldozed.Mr.
Abu Arab believes the IDF mistook his house for that of the Hamaad family
because "the two houses look similar and both were empty at the time and it was
a dark street."[246]Mr. Abu Arab has filed for compensation with
Israeli authorities and is awaiting a response.[247]

Brazil and Salam (evening May 19-morning May 24)

Despite the
international outcry after the killing of the demonstrators outside of Tel
al-Sultan, the IDF accelerated its operations by launching an offensive deep
into Brazil
and the neighboring Salam area for the first time in the uprising.According to UNRWA, the IDF demolished 154
houses in Brazil
and Salam.Four Palestinian civilians
were reportedly killed, including a three-year-old girl shot near her home and
a three-year-old boy who died of shock from a house demolition.Four armed fighters were also killed by
helicopter-launched missiles.Most of
the dead were killed in the initial hours of the incursion, except a
three-year-old girl reportedly shot by IDF snipers near her home in Brazil
on May 22.The IDF said that the reason
for its incursion was to search for tunnels and eliminate or arrest
militants.Although Brazil and Salam are located near the border,
much of the initial destruction occurred in areas deep inside Brazil, closer to the center of the
camp, up to one kilometer from the border.

Two patterns
of house demolition are evident in Brazil.In the interior of the camp, the IDF
bulldozed paths through blocks of one-story houses.An IDF officer confirmed to Human Rights
Watch that there was a general directive for the Brazil incursion to stay off of
main roads whenever possible in order to avoid potential bombs, irrespective of
any specific threats.Approaching the
border, destruction seems to have been progressively more indiscriminate,
leveling wider swathes of housing.

The assault
on Brazil
began before midnight on May
19.Tanks and Caterpillar D9s quickly
moved into Brazil
from the north and east while Apache helicopter gunships fired missiles into
the camp.

The Rafah
zoo marked the deepest point of penetration into Rafah, where Israeli forces
set up a perimeter to isolate Brazil
nearly eight hundred meters from the border.En route to the zoo, IDF D9s plowed through several fields, homes, and a
factory.Sami Qishta's one-story house
was one of those destroyed near the zoo:

I was
sitting in the house and suddenly I saw the bulldozer next to me in the
house.I heard them but I didn't think
they were coming to destroy my house.I
was inside for fifteen minutes while they hit it from different sides.Then they stopped and I left.I couldn't leave before then.When I tried to leave the house they said to
me in Arabic, "Don't leave!We'll
destroy it on your head!"[248]

Mohammed
Juma', one of the owners of the zoo, saw an armored bulldozer breach the outer
wall of the compound around midnight,
crushing an ostrich in its cage:

Map 7: Brazil Features

I ran in
front of the bulldozer and started shouting in Hebrew that this was a zoo and
not to destroy it.They fired a sound
bomb at me and I went back to the balcony of my house. The bulldozer circled
in the courtyard for fifteen minutes and then left.As it was leaving, a tank came, entered,
circled, left, without destroying anything.Half an hour later, two [Israeli] bulldozers, marked "4" and "7," and
one tank entered.And then the movie
started.Over the next six hours, they
demolished the entire zoo.They didn't
leave anything behind.No trees, no
cages, no animals.[249]

The
demolition of the zoo and adjacent olive grove owned by the Qishta family was a
time-consuming and deliberate act at the farthest point of advance into the
camp, not one taken in the heat of battle or while en route to another
objective.After the zoo and olive grove
were leveled and the debris was moved away, three Israeli tanks parked in the
compound for the next day; two more guarded the perimeter.A group of IDF soldiers also seized control
of Mr. Juma's four-story house, located in the same compound, and confined his
family to one room, except his brother, who was kept on the roof.

Residents in
the area said there had been no shooting at Israeli troops.The IDF bulldozer driver who razed the zoo
told an Israeli journalist that he had been ordered to destroy the zoo to "keep
them from shooting at our soldiers from there."When asked if this meant that there was no shooting from the zoo, he
replied: "They said it would endanger the lives of soldiers, so I destroyed it.I do not ask questions.That is not my job.They tell me to demolish something and I do
it."[250]

After
denying that the zoo had been destroyed, the IDF explained that it had
destroyed the zoo while en route to another objective and because an alternate
route had been booby-trapped.[251]The zoo, however, seems to have been the edge
of the IDF cordon rather than on the way to any other destination.

The zoo was
one of the few recreational areas in an overcrowded camp whose residents have
been denied access to the sea by Israeli settlements for the past four
years.Thousands of animals, including
jaguars, crocodiles, wolves, snakes, and birds escaped from the zoo or were
killed during its demolition.According
to documents that Mr. Juma' showed to Human Rights Watch, the total value of
damages to property and animals totaled nearly U.S.$ 800,000.The IDF also destroyed two UNICEF-funded
playgrounds during the May 18-24 incursions, one in Tel al-Sultan and one in Brazil,[252]
although Human Rights Watch has not investigated the circumstances of these
incidents.

The IDF's
claim that the zoo was bulldozed en route to another location is not consistent
with the facts.Rather, given that it
was the furthest point of advance in the camp, the deliberate and
time-consuming nature of the destruction, the seizure of the four-story Juma'
house, and the stationing of several tanks there for over a day, it seems more
likely that the IDF used the area to enforce a cordon separating Brazil from
central Rafah.Most important, there is
no indication that this destruction was done in response to gunfire or in the
heat of battle.

The
destruction of the zoo was not justified by absolute military necessity.Even if it had been justified to destroy the
zoo and olive grove and convert them into a strongpoint, a less destructive
alternative was easily at hand.For the
purposes of sealing off Brazil
from central Rafah, the municipal stadium across the street from the zoo would
have provided similar tactical value to the IDF while entailing less
destruction.While the four-story Juma'
house may have made it a more appealing observation point than the two-story
building in the stadium compound, the stadium offers other tactical
advantages.It was already an open
space, equipped with lights, and surrounded by a wall.Converting the stadium into military use may
have necessitated tearing down the chainlink fence around the grass and
damaging the field.This would have been
easier both to destroy and to repair than the zoo, with its multiple cages,
fountains, and animals, as well as the hundreds of decades-old olive trees in
the adjacent grove.

After
sunrise on May 20, the IDF continued destroying homes in the interior of Brazil,
nearly seven hundred meters from the border.From the roof of his four-story home, Mahmoud Nijm saw an armored bulldozer
and two tanks make their way southward from the area of the zoo, several blocks
away.The D9 cut a path through several
one-story shops, passed in front of Mr. Nijm's building, and then turned
southward to plow through a block of one-story houses bordered by taller
buildings:

Behind
the bulldozer were two tanks.They
stopped in the street to the south of my building, and were facing two
different directions.The bulldozer then
destroyed the home of Jamal Abu Hamaad, across the street from me to the south.
I saw the roof falling in, the family was shouting from inside and the
bulldozer stopped.The people came out
through the hole in the front and left.I didn't see where they went, maybe to the neighbors.The bulldozer then destroyed the house.[253]

Human Rights
Watch found Jamal Abu Hamaad's wife, Fariyaal, still living in a local
elementary school two months after losing her home.She confirmed Mr. Nijm's account of the
destruction of her home:

I was
sitting in my home in the morning.I
heard a bulldozer outside.I thought it
was a Palestinian bulldozer at the time.I didn't realize it was a military operation.They started firing bullets at the door of
the house.One minute, [the bulldozer]
came into my son's part of the house and destroyed it.When the bulldozer pushed into my room, I saw
the driver who motioned with a hand to get out.All of us gathered in the last room of the
house.The bulldozer was plowing through
the rest of the house.We had white
flags and didn't take anything from the house.We came out through the hole in the wall punched by the bulldozer.[254]

Fariyaal Abu
Hamaad's home in Brazil
was destroyed by an IDF bulldozer on May 20, 2004. "All of us gathered in the last room of
the house," she said. "The bulldozer was plowing through the rest of
the house." - 2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

According to
Mr. Nijm, the armored bulldozer proceeded to completely destroy a row of three
small houses before pushing southward:

The
bulldozer then turned to the house next to [the Abu Hamaad house], which
belongs to 'Emad Mansour.A man came out
with his hands up, and was talking to the soldiers.The family brought out one box and then left.The house was destroyed.The third house in the row belonged to
Mohammed Abu Tayema and was empty at the time.The bulldozer destroyed it.It
pushed all the debris onto a side street and also into the house of Mansour
Mansour, which was just to the south of the three homes.[255]

They
demolished the kitchen wall and we all ran outside.We went to the Hassan family house, which was
just west of our home.Maybe there were
fifty people in there all together.The
bulldozer came after us.We all ran to
the Qishta house.When the bulldozer
came, the women went out with a white flag, and then we all went to the nearby
school.[256]

The
bulldozer soon broke through to the next street and crossed over to the house
where Mr. Nijm's brother, mother, and other relatives were: "The bulldozer
moved the debris through the block towards the house where my brother and
mother were. When they destroyed the house I thought that they had died."[257]

Mr. Nijm's
brother Husayn told Human Rights Watch:

During
the night there was noise and destruction.I woke up and my wife said that the shooting [from the IDF overnight]
had stopped. I soon saw a bulldozer from my window across the street
destroying homes.There was no time to
get anything.The bulldozer was coming
towards the house.My wife and brother's
wife took the children, I picked up my mother she weighs eighty-five kilos!

We
escaped through a hole in the back of the house.I fell while carrying my mother but my
neighbor helped me with her.We went
through that house, crossed the street, and put everyone in another neighbor's
house.I circled back to the end of my
street to see my house being destroyed.Everyone was crying.The whole
thing took about four minutes.[258]

The
demolition continued throughout much of May 20 and appears to have been more
indiscriminate in areas closer to the border.Houses alongside wide streets were partially demolished, while other
blocks of one-story homes were bulldozed.Video footage and photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the
incursion show roads torn down the center, a pattern consistent with the use of
the back ripper of D9 bulldozers.The
destruction of roads caused serious damage to both water and sewage systems,
and often created a mixing of the two.

Some homes
could not be destroyed for any identifiable reason, justified or
otherwise.Next to Subhi Abu Ghali's
two-story house is the space where his father's house used to be.It was a one-story asbestos-roofed home,
approximately 125 square meters in area.None of the surrounding houses were destroyed, there were no tunnels in the
vicinity, and there were nothing to indicate that the house had been used to
fire upon the IDF.On the morning of May
20, Abu Ghali, who works as an UNRWA nurse, put on his health worker's vest and
brought his father into his house before stepping outside to plead with the
soldiers.He told Human Rights Watch:

We
started yelling towards the soldiers.I
had my UNRWA health department vest on.We were in the street for ten to fifteen minutes: my wife, my mother, my
kids, and me.Only my father was still
inside my house.We watched the
bulldozer destroy my father's house.I thought
they were coming to destroy my house too.I carried my father and we walked in the street.I saw other homes being destroyed.It was difficult to carry my father.They were shooting into the ground near us.

My
children didn't want to leave me.I put
the kids and my father in a neighbor's house.My wife and I took my son from the house to the neighbors' house.We made multiple trips.They were shooting at the ground and at walls
the whole time. They were seeking revenge.My father is a ninety year old man; does he have a tunnel or a weapon?[259]

The IDF left
the center of Brazil
on May 21, keeping tanks in the streets to close off areas closer to the
border.Snipers were still positioned in
several buildings in the neighborhood, firing at residents throughout the next
day.Rawan Abu Zaid, aged three, was
reportedly shot and killed by IDF snipers on May 22 while near her home, at the
same time as a visit to Brazil
by UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen.[260]

On May 23,
the IDF announced the discovery of an eight-meter deep tunnel in Brazil
the previous day; two days later, IDF Gaza Division Commander Brigadier General
Shmuel Zakai clarified that the tunnel was an incomplete shaft eight meters
deep.[261]Rafah residents believe that the shaft was
the one in the Babli house, which the PNA had already sealed.

On the
morning of May 23, the IDF destroyed a home belonging to the Namla family near
the Babli house.The Namlas lived in two
adjacent houses: a one-floor house used by the grandparents and a four-story
building divided between the families of their sons.After the IDF bulldozed half of the
grandparents' house and pushed debris into the other half, four bulldozers
converged on the larger house.Protracted negotiations, going on for one to two hours, ensued.The IDF soldiers took two of the women of the
family away for a brief interrogation, during which they asked about tunnels in
the area, while the family frantically called the ICRC and the MezanCenter
for Human Rights, eventually reaching an IDF legal adviser.Mohammed Namla, one of the grandsons, told
Human Rights Watch what happened next:

My father
spoke with the legal advisor [by phone], who asked if we were really inside the
house."We're inside the house right
now," we told him.He said that the
commander told him the house was empty.The legal advisor asked for our address and said he would call
back.After fifteen minutes he called
and said, "The demolition will be stopped.We won't demolish your two houses."But the first one was already destroyed.[262]

The Namla
family also managed to contact a local radio station while the D9s were
outside, informing the whole camp of their situation."The army is outside, and we are refusing to
leave," Mohammed's father Yusuf reportedly said on the air. "Help us."[263]

While the
queries from IDF legal adviser may have encouraged the soldiers at the Namla
house to restrain themselves, they did not compel a change of decision.According to Maj. Noam Neuman, the IDF Deputy
Legal Adviser for the Gaza Strip, "I don't know of cases where legal advisers
told commanders not to destroy.Sometimes they call us to tell us they're going to destroy
something.But the IDF knows the
law.We don't stop them because they
know what the law is."[264]

On July 1,
the family fled the house after one of the walls was hit by a bulldozer.Upon returning the next day, they saw that it
had been taken over by the IDF; the family found food and water bottles left
behind by the soldiers, as well as excrement on the family's clothes; some U.S.
$200 in cash was gone.The building is
one of the last ones remaining in the area, but Mohammed, his brother, and
father continue to take turns sleeping there at night to prevent its
demolition.

Tactics of Destruction

In contrast
with the routine operations since 2000 that have gradually expanded the Rafah
buffer zone, the May 18-24 incursions involved widespread destruction deep
inside Rafah, far from the border.Operating in dense urban areas can present significant risks to militaries,
but density is not a reason to disregard international humanitarian law.Human Rights Watch found little evidence to
suggest significant or sustained armed resistance to these incursions.Even if there had been fighting, the IDF
adopted operational doctrines of destruction that were indiscriminate and
disproportionate.

The IDF's
concerns about incoming fire from buildings and improved explosive devices (IEDs)
on roads during incursions were not unfounded.Armored vehicles are particularly susceptible to anti-armor weapons when
fired from above or behind, targeting areas of minimal armored protection.These vehicles are also susceptible to mines
and explosives from below, and Palestinian armed groups were placing IEDs on
some of Rafah's roads.[265]In Brazil and Tel al-Sultan, however,
the IDF treated this risk in a general manner, assuming every street posed a
threat that justified demolishing homes, tearing up roads, and razing
agricultural land.

In a
military operation, an occupying power must at all times distinguish between
civilian objects and military objectives and direct its attacks only against
the latter.In cases of doubt as to
whether a normally civilian object is a military one or not, it should be
presumed to be civilian (see Chapter VIII).Destroying roads on the assumption that they are mined and civilian
homes on the assumption that every road around them is mined undermines this
rule, and is also likely to result in disproportionate and indiscriminate
destruction in densely populated areas.If the IDF had a specific reason to believe that a particular road was
unsafe due to IEDs or potential RPG fire, for example, it could take steps to
avoid that road and could destroy the road or homes near it only as a last
resort.But destruction without even
checking for specific threats contravenes the principle of precaution, which
requires that militaries do everything feasible to verify that the objectives
attacked are not of a civilian character.The principle of precaution also includes the duty to cancel or suspend
attacks against nonmilitary objectives or that may be expected to cause
disproportionate damage.[266]

Military
commanders on the ground must also assess the proportionality of means and
methods they use by weighing the anticipated harm to civilians against the
anticipated military gain. The rule of proportionality is intended to avoid and
in any event minimize the number of civilian casualties and destruction that
derives from hostilities.The widespread
destruction of homes and roads used by civilians had a major impact on
civilians, while the military gain of such conduct remains hypothetical at
best.

Home Demolitions to Enhance Mobility

The IDF
destroyed 156 homes in Brazil
and Salam and damaged fifty-nine others rendering over 1,900 people
homeless.Many of these homes,
especially those further from the border, were demolished to provide the IDF
with greater mobility and to protect it from attack.

The adjacent
satellite image shows some of this destruction, based on imagery analysis and
ground-level assessments by Human Rights Watch researchers.Much of the destruction rendered homes
uninhabitable without completely collapsing them, thus making them more
difficult to detect from above.In
addition, the restrictions placed by the U.S.
government on the quality of satellite imagery of Israel/OPT make this assessment a
necessarily conservative one.

Infrastructure Destruction

According to
the RafahMunicipality, the IDF destroyed 51.2% of
the city's roads during the May incursions.[267]In addition to the obvious problems this
causes for traffic of commercial vehicles, health care workers, and others, the
road demolitions caused severe destruction of civilian infrastructure, such as
water, sewage, and the electrical grid, as pipes and wires were severed during
the shredding of roads.Human Rights Watch's analysis suggests that such
ancillary destruction served no military purpose and could have been avoided.

Map 8: Brazil Destruction During Operation Rainbow

A road in Beit
Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, destroyed by the rear blade known as the
"ripper" of a CAT armored bulldozer, deployed by the IDF. - 2004
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Damage to
the water system affected a water network that, according to UNDP and the
Palestinian Ministry of Planning, was already "old, worn and polluted."[268]According to the RafahMunicipality, thirty-six out of
fifty-five kilometers of water pipes were damaged in the neighborhoods of Tel
al-Sultan, Brazil
and Salam.Twenty-seven out of
thirty-five kilometers of sewage pipes were damaged in the same area.[269]

The
destruction of water and sewage pipes, and especially their mixing, may lead to
waterborne disease.Indeed, traces of
polio have been detected in the water supply.[270]According to the UN, some seventy percent of
common illnesses in the area stem from water pollution.[271]

IDF tanks
and bulldozers also caused extensive damage to the electrical grid, breaking
electricity poles, cutting wires and destroying transformers.According to the Gaza Electrical Distribution
Company (GEDCO), the cost of damage to the electrical infrastructure was U.S.
$150,005.This destruction comes on top
of repeated damage over the past four years.The GEDCO transformer near Salah al-Din gate, for example, has been
damaged or destroyed eight times since September 2000.[272]

Without
electricity during the operation, the water wells and waste water pumping
station in Tel al-Sultan could not function, and the municipality needed UNRWA
and ICRC help to get a technician to the area with fuel for the generator.[273]The main pipe lines to Rafah were undamaged,
but no water made it to Tel al-Sultan for ten days.Three young men were shot by Israeli snipers
on May 19, and one of them killed, when they went outside in violation of a
twenty-four hour curfew to fill bottles with water (see case of Abu Libda
family above).

As discussed
above, destruction of roads on the general assumption that such threats existed
everywhere contravenes principles of international humanitarian law.And in addition to the protection for
civilian property normally granted under humanitarian law, water and sewage
infrastructure is especially important due to their importance to the survival
of the civilian population.As Article
54(2) of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions states:

It is
prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable
to the survival of the civilian population, such as drinking water
installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of
denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the
adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians,
to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.[274]

At different
times, the IDF has given three rationales for road destruction: To clear a path
free of IEDs, to sever wires used to detonate IEDs[275],
and to protect against suicide car attacks.[276]The manner in which the roads were destroyed,
however, was not consistent with the stated intents.

In Rafah,
the IDF used a blade on the back of the Caterpillar D9 called the "ripper" to
destroy roads (see Box
5).In the West Bank and
other parts of Gaza,
the IDF has frequently dragged the ripper across a street to create a speed
bump or barrier to block suicide attacks.But in the May incursions, the IDF dragged the ripper down the middle of
streets, creating a long line of broken asphalt and dirt.Because the ripper can penetrate 1.7 metes
(five feet, five inches) into the ground, it severed water and sewage pipes
along the way.

It is
unclear how use of the ripper in this manner would clear IEDs because the blade
is on the bulldozer's back.On the
contrary, ripping up paved roads might have facilitated the planting of
explosives as debris can be used to conceal an explosive device.

Speed-bumps
caused by the ripper when dragged across a road can be an effective way to
hinder suicide bombers, and Human Rights Watch researchers observed such
speed-bumps throughout Gaza,
outside of Rafah, in close proximity to settlements and IDF positions, like
checkpoints.The use of the D9 ripper to
destroy down the middle of the street, however, merely divides the road into
two lanes and is ineffective at slowing down high-speed vehicles on roads such
as those destroyed in Tel al-Sultan and Brazil, which are approximately ten
meters wide and were designed for two-way traffic.

Razing Agricultural Land

The IDF also
systematically destroyed two large agricultural areas in Tel al-Sultan, both
filled with greenhouses for fruits, flowers and vegetables.In total, D9 bulldozers razed 298 donums
(29.8 hectares) of land.[277]

Satellite
imagery shows the areas of greenhouses replaced by barren land.Human Rights Watch
researchers visited both plots, now filled with dirt mounds and crumpled metal
frames.Both areas are more than one
kilometer away from the border and not near any Jewish settlements.

A barren wasteland is all that remains of
nearly 30 hectares of agricultural land that had been filled with greenhouses
containing fruit, flowers, and vegetables before it was destroyed by the IDF.
2004 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

Map 9: Razing of Agriculture

The
destruction of agricultural land took place in a context in which military
necessity could not have justified it.The area was under IDF control at the time of the destruction and
resistance was minimal, if existent at all (see section above on Tel al-Sultan).Even if there had been resistance, it is
unclear what military advantage destroying large swaths of agricultural land so
far from the border would provide.

As with the
destruction of roads and certain houses, the IDF invoked the threat of IEDs on
roads to justify destruction of agricultural land: "IDF vehicles were forced to
refrain from traveling on these roads and navigated through the surrounding
fields, or other roads, instead," a letter from the spokesperson's office said.[278]While this explains why military vehicles may
have traveled through fields, it does
not explain why bulldozers spent at least two days systematically destroying
every greenhouse in two large areas.

VII. ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The
international community's response to the May incursions was strong in words
and weak on action.Still, near
universal condemnation of the destruction from governments and organizations
probably helped limit the Israeli abuse.

World
leaders and major organizations strongly criticized Israel for the destruction of homes,
property, and infrastructure in May (See Appendix) as well as the unlawful
killing of civilians.The most forceful
international criticism was Security Council Resolution 1544, passed on May 19,
after the killings at the demonstration in Tel al-Sultan (see Box 4).With a vote of 14-0, the council called on Israel
to respect international humanitarian law and, in particular, "its obligation
not to undertake demolition of homes contrary to that law."The resolution also expressed "grave concern
regarding the humanitarian situation of Palestinians made homeless in the Rafah
area."

The lone
abstention came from the United States,
but even this was an unusually forceful U.S. response to Israeli
violations.In the past, the U.S. has repeatedly blocked Security Council
resolutions critical of its ally in the Middle East.Prior to the Security Council vote, Secretary
of State Colin Powell had said the U.S. opposed "the kind of actions
that they [the IDF] are taking in Rafah."[279]

Despite
these strong positions, the U.S.
government took no concrete steps to encourage Israel's compliance with
international humanitarian law.On May
19 Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Powell to explain the Rafah
offensive.He told the press after the
meetings that he did not hear "the slightest criticism" from his interlocutors.[280]

Most
important, U.S.
funding continued to flow to the country's leading recipient of aid.The 2004 U.S. Foreign Appropriations Act
allocated U.S. $2.15 billion to Israel
for foreign military financing and U.S.$ 480 million for economic assistance,
and none of this was placed in doubt.In
2003, the U.S. government
also granted Israel
U.S.$ 9 billion in loan guarantees to be dispersed over three years, part of
which is intended to help defray debts from earlier guarantees.Some of the equipment Israel purchases with U.S. aid, like the Caterpillar D9
bulldozer, is used to commit the abuses described in this report.

The European
Union is Israel's
largest trading partner, with 22 billion in commerce between them in
2002.E.U.-Israel trade takes place
under the framework of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement; Article 2 of the
Agreement stipulates that relations "shall be based on respect for human rights
and democratic principles."Despite
support in the European Parliament to suspend the Agreement due to Israel's
human rights record, there has been little concrete action in this direction.[281]

Paying for the Mess

The Gaza Strip
is heavily reliant on foreign aid, nearly U.S. $1 billion per year.[282]In Rafah, many of the essential programs and
infrastructure are either heavily supported or completely funded by outside
sources, like the European Union, U.S. government, Arab Development Bank, World
Bank, and United Nations.These
governments and organizations fund schools, water works, health care
facilities, and offices of the PNA.

They also
fund reconstruction for much of the destruction caused by the IDF, some of it
of facilities these governments and organizations had funded in the first
place.In June 2003, the World Bank
estimated the IDF had damaged or destroyed U.S.$ 150 million worth of
donor-funded infrastructure in Gaza and the West
Bank since September 2000,[283]
including the GazaAirport, PNA police
installations, and UNRWA schools.[284]In January 2004, Israel paid compensation for damage
to the contents of a WFP warehouse, the only known case of compensation for
damage to donor-funded property.[285]

On May 31,
UNRWA issued an appeal for U.S.$ 15.84 million for Rafah "to provide emergency
cash, food and housing assistance to the hundreds of families who have lost
their homes, had a breadwinner killed or wounded, or who are in need of ongoing
medical care."[286]According to UNRWA, re-housing a family costs
U.S.$ 20,000, and as of May 31 the agency had already spent U.S.$ 12,106,474 to
provide accommodations for the displaced.[287]

As of August
29, UNRWA had built, was in the process of building, or had funding to build
430 dwelling units in Rafah, while projects for a further 1,464 units remained
unfunded.The United Arab Emirates Red
Crescent Society and the Saudi Committee for the Relief of the Palestinians
have also pledged funds that could cover up to nine hundred units of this backlog,
though details have yet to be finalized.[288]The PNA Ministry of Housing, which is
primarily responsible for Rafah residents who are not refugees from what is now
Israel,
has built fifty-nine new housing units and is working on twenty more; thirty of
the completed units, however, remain empty due to their proximity to the IDF
base in Rafiah Yam settlement.[289]In the meantime, the number of new houses
required continues to grow.

On August
11, the EC allocated 1.35 million specifically for victims of house
demolitions in Rafah.The money is for
temporary accommodations, cash assistance, shelter repairs, and key
infrastructure, including the rehabilitation of water supply networks, sewage
systems, and two schools, the EC said.Commenting on the decision, European Commissioner for Development and
Humanitarian Aid Poul Nielson reminded Israel that "these funds do not
absolve the occupying power of its responsibilities to uphold international
humanitarian law."He added: "As
reiterated by the European Union and the United Nations, house demolitions are
disproportionate acts that contravene international humanitarian law, in
particular the Fourth Geneva Convention, and show a reckless disregard for the
lives of civilians."[290]The next day, the Islamic Development Bank
said it would pay U.S.$ 25 million for reconstruction.[291]

The U.S. government has authorized the use of up to
U.S.$ 20 million from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund
to allow UNRWA to assist Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza.The State Department said on July 29 that the
contribution was in response to UNRWA's U.S. $193 million emergency appeal for
2004.USAID had fast-tracked U.S. $100,000
to a local contractor to repair Rafah's water and sewage pipes and to replace
the transformer at the Jumset Jabil pumping station.[292]

While this
funding is desperately needed, the UNRWA appeal contributed to a debate within
the aid community about funding the reconstruction for which Israel is obliged to pay.

"We are
certainly prepared to continue our humanitarian assistance and to support the
rebuilding of the infrastructure of those areas from which the Israel
defense forces withdraw," said Chris Patten, European Commissioner for External
Relations."But I have to say that this
time I think we should seek certain guarantees from the Israeli defense forces
that they will not destroy again what we build."[293]According to press reports, the U.S.
government had sought such assurances in 2003 after some USAID-funded water
wells in Rafah were destroyed.[294]

Box 5: The Caterpillar D9
Armored Bulldozer

The Caterpillar D9 is the main IDF tool
to demolish homes, structures, and agricultural areas in Gaza
and the West Bank.The bulldozer is produced by Caterpillar
Inc. and sold through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales Program.Armored plating is provided by state-owned
Israel Military Industries (IMI).

The Caterpillar D9 is a powerful
track-type tractor manufactured primarily for construction or agricultural
use.The front blade is more than 1.8
meters (six feet) high and 4.58 meters (fifteen feet) wide, and is designed
to plow material, penetrate structures and carry loads.The IDF uses it to knock down walls, transport
debris and plow for mines.On the
bulldozer's back is the "ripper," used to loosen ground, remove stones and
excavate ditches.The IDF also uses it
to shred roads.Hydraulically
controlled, the single shank blade can penetrate 1.7 meters (five feet, five
inches) into the ground.[295]

Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria, Illinois,
USA, claims
to be the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment,
diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines.In 2003, the corporation (NYSE: CAT) posted
sales and revenues of U.S. $22.76 billion and a profit of U.S. $1.1
billion.Approximately half of all
sales were to customers outside the United States.

The corporation and its chairman, Glen
Barton, also claim to value social responsibility.According to Caterpillar's code of
conduct:

Wherever we conduct business
or invest our resources around the world, we know that our commitment to
financial success must also take into account social, economic, political,
and environmental priorities. We believe that our success should also
contribute to the quality of life and the prosperity of communities where we
work and live.[296]

Many corporations, governments, and
international institutions recognize that corporations have an obligation to
ensure respect for human rights and humanitarian law.Most recently, the United Nations has begun
to develop standards for corporations in the form of the U.N. Norms on the
Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises
with Regard to Human Rights have.That
document states that companies should not "engage in or benefit from"
violations of international human
rights or humanitarian law and that companies "shall further seek to
ensure that the goods and services they provide will not be used to abuse
human rights."[297]Despite the guidelines set out in
the U.N. Norms and the company's own commitment to socially-responsible
practices, Caterpillar has not taken meaningful steps to ensure that its
products do not contribute to violations.In the case of the company's bulldozers, there is strong and credible
evidence that they have been used for unnecessary and excessive house and property
demolitions that amount to violations of international humanitarian law.

Caterpillar does not appear to have
implemented these principles with regard to bulldozer sales to Israel.Instead, the company claims it is not
responsible for how its equipment is used.In response to complaints from the organization Jewish Voice for Peace
about the bulldozers' use in illegal house demolitions, CEO James W. Owens
wrote that Caterpillar has "neither the legal right nor the ability to
monitor and police individual use of that equipment."[298]The claim was repeated verbatim in a
Caterpillar statement on the Middle East."We believe any comments on political
conflict in the region are best left to our governmental leaders who have the
ability to impact action and advance the peace process," the statement said.[299]

The letter from Owens further explainedthat
Caterpillar's sales to Israel
were conducted through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS), whereby
the U.S. Department ofDefense
purchases goods from U.S.
manufacturers and resells them to foreign governments.

In late May 2004, days after the major
demolitions, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler,
wrote to Owens about Caterpillar bulldozers being used to "destroy
agricultural farms, greenhouses, ancient olive groves and agricultural fields
planted with crops, as well as numerous Palestinian homes and sometimes human
lives."Delivery of the bulldozers to
the Israeli government with knowledge that they were being used for illegal
demolitions, Ziegler wrote, "might involve complicity or acceptance on the
part of your company to actual and potential violations of human rights,
including the right to food."[300]

Human Rights Watch believes that
Caterpillar's products have been used to further violations of international
humanitarian law and that the company should take steps to ensure that this
does not occur in the future.Such
steps could include: agreeing to abide by standards such as the U.N. Norms
and refusing to participate in the FMS program with Israel or to reject sales to
governments or other parties where there is a risk that the company's
products will be used in the perpetuation of human rights violations.Otherwise, Caterpillar will remain
complicit in the international humanitarian law violations that occurred
because of excessive and unwarranted demolitions by the Israeli government
while using the company's bulldozers.

VIII. PROPERTY DESTRUCTION UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND
ISRAELI LAW

Israel's conduct in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritories (OPT) is
regulated by two distinct but overlapping legal regimes: international
humanitarian law (IHL) also known as the law of armed conflict and human
rights law.Both regimes aim to enhance
the protection of the civilian population, and in a complex situation such as a
belligerent occupation, they complement and reinforce each other.

International Humanitarian Law

Under IHL, Israel is the Occupying Power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.As such, it is bound by a subset of IHL that deals specifically with
occupation, codified primarily in two legal instruments: the 1907 Hague
Regulations[301]
and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.[302]As discussed in Chapter 3, Israel has rejected the
applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the OPT, a position that is
not shared by the international community.

Since 2000,
Israel has also argued that the uprising in the OPT constitutes an "armed
conflict short of war" in which it can lawfully use military force but where
the laws of international armed conflict do not fully apply since the IDF is
not fighting a state.Maj. Noam Neuman,
the IDF Deputy Legal Adviser in the Gaza Strip, summarized this position
concisely: "Although we don't have the duty to obey all the rules as a policy
we obey the laws of war."[303]In effect, Israeli authorities have tried to
place themselves in a situation in which they are free to choose when they can
invoke the privileges afforded by IHL while avoiding its responsibilities.[304]

While there
have been a series of armed engagements throughout both the OPT and Israel, Israel still retains overall
effective control in the OPT and is therefore bound by the duties of an
Occupying Power, as well as its obligations under international human rights
law.

Responsibilities of an Occupier: Military Operations
vs. Security Measures

An Occupying
Power has two roles: as an administrator with security responsibilities, and as
a potential belligerent in the event of fighting.The Occupying Power is always responsible,
however, for protecting the civilian population in its hands.[305]

As an
administrator responsible for maintaining law and order, an Occupying Power can
take preventive measures to enhance the security of its forces, such as
patrols, fortifications, checkpoints, and taking control of private property.

Adopting preventive
security measures entails assessment of potential risks rather than direct and
actual threats.These measuresare by definition taken outside of a context
of fighting or preparations for battle. In this situation, a fuller range of
human rights protections and due process guarantees should apply.The Israeli Supreme Court has heard cases
involving house demolitions for decades, but it has consistently sanctioned policies
that violate both human rights law and IHL.

In the event
of hostilities, an Occupying Power may also engage in military operations,
which the Commentary to the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions
defines as "movements, manuvres and actions of any sort, carried out by the
armed forces with a view to combat."[306]A belligerent occupation cannot be considered
a "military operation" in itself, nor can every activity conducted by the
Occupying Power be considered a military operation.Rather, military operations must be
concretely linked to fighting.

IHL strictly
limits the destruction of property to military operations.According to Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal
property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the
State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative
organizations, is prohibited, except
where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations"
[emphasis added].General security measures
not connected to actual fighting are not included in this exception.[307]For this reason, the ICRC stated during the
May incursions in Rafah that "the destruction of property as a general security
measure is prohibited."[308]Article 53 adapts Article 23(g) of the Hague
Regulations, which is now recognized as customary law by the Israeli Supreme
Court, more restrictively to occupation.[309]Article 23(g) forbids destruction or seizure
of property unless "imperatively demanded by the necessities of war."One leading commentator argues that:

not
everysituation of military necessity
but only imperative reasons of military necessity, i.e. most serious military
reasons which are of an imperative nature, may justify [destruction or seizure
of property]. Accordingly, the pure fact that the acts under consideration do
serve security needs or contribute to the security of the area at large is not
in itself sufficient to justify any of the otherwise prohibited acts, unless it
can be proven that there is indeed an imperative need to do so, i.e. that there
are no other means to secure military safety.In particular, national-security needs in a broad sense may not justify
takings or private property.[310]

As
documented in this report, the IDF frequently destroyed houses, roads, and
agricultural land for reasons not linked to combat.The most widespread demolitions have been in
the context of the expansion of the buffer zone.Other demolitions have proceeded on the basis
of a general assumption, without verification, that roads are mined.Houses near the border used in past attacks
have also been destroyed, usually accompanied by an internal legal review."We destroy a house if it was used [against
us] before and as long as we think it will be used again," said Major Neuman.[311]The IDF has also spoken of other non-combat
rationales for mass demolition, including "weaken[ing] the fear of the
existence of tunnels."[312]

IDF doctrine
appears to inappropriately conflate military operations linked to fighting with
security measures intended to reduce the general risk to the Occupying
Power.This inherently expansive
interpretation of military operations, with the broader latitude for
destruction, has been a recipe for incremental expansion of the buffer zone as
well as for excessive destruction during incursions into the camp.As one IDF officer put it, "I have no
doubt that the clearing actions [i.e. house demolition and land razing] have an
element of tactical value, but the question is, where do we draw the line?According to that logic, what prevents us
from destroying Gaza?"[313]

Destruction of Property in Occupation: Military
Operations and Absolute Necessity

Once engaged
in military operations in other words, actions taken with a view to fighting
an occupying power can destroy property only "when rendered absolutely
necessary by military operations."Military necessity is one of the most difficult concepts to define under
IHL, as too broad a definition could easily undermine many IHL norms and revert
to an unacceptable "everything is fair in war" standard.The Commentary
to the Fourth Geneva Convention is especially aware of this danger with regard
to property destruction and expresses concern that "unscrupulous recourse to
the clause concerning military necessity would allow the Occupying Power to
circumvent the prohibition set forth in the Convention."[314]

In the case
of property destruction, military necessity must be "absolute," which the ICRC
has interpreted to mean "materially indispensable" in the framework of military
operations.[315]The Canadian military manual's section on
occupation stipulates that:

Property
of any type or ownership may be damaged when such is necessary to, or results
from, military operations either during or preparatory to combat.Destruction is forbidden except where there
is some reasonable connection between the destruction of the property and the
overcoming of the enemy forces.[316]

Similarly,
the U.S.
military field manual's regulations for destruction in the context of
hostilities require a "reasonably close
connection between the destruction of property and the overcoming of the
enemy's army" [emphasis added].[317]The U.K. military manual is more
explicit in a reference to conduct in recently captured areas, where the army
has not yet established the degree of control required for an occupation:

once
the defended locality has surrendered or been captured, only such further
damage is permitted as is demanded by the exigencies of war, for example
removal of fortifications, demolition of military structures, destruction of
military stores, or measures for the defence of the locality.It is
not permissible to destroy a public building or private house because it was
defended [emphasis added].[318]

The IDF
manual on the laws of war on the battlefield interprets military necessity and
property destruction much more permissively:

The Hague
Conventions state that unnecessary
destruction of enemy property is forbidden. The emphasis here is on
unnecessary, for as opposed to [sic] civilians, there is no absolute protection
of property in wartime.It is only
natural that property sustain damage in war.The only restriction is to refrain from destroying property senselessly,
where there is no military justification, for the sheer sake of vandalism
[emphasis in the original].[319]

Under this
standard, any destruction that could have some hypothetical military value is
permitted.There is no mention of the need for "absolute" necessity required
in contexts of occupation.Indeed, the IDF manual does not even establish that
the destruction must conform to other rules of IHL.Yet one of the oldest
and most widely accepted definitions of military necessity states that it
consists of "measures which are essential to attain the goals of war, and which
are lawful in accordance with the laws and customs of war."[320]In other words, military necessity cannot be
used as an excuse to violate
explicit IHL provisions, because the requirements of military necessity have
already been incorporated into IHL rules.The military manuals of the U.S.,
U.K., Canada, and other major armies
emphasize this point but it does not appear anywhere in the IDF manual.[321]

In
explaining house demolitions during military operations, Israeli officials
frequently cite the example of civilian houses being used to shelter gunmen
while they attack the occupying army.[322]The IDF's guidelines for permissible
demolition, however, encompass far more than this example.During the May 18-24 incursions, the IDF said
that it also destroyed homes if trip wires for explosives originated from them,
if "terrorists" resided in them, or if they covered tunnel entrances.[323]The IDF field commander reportedly indicated
that he also considered any house from which an armed person emerged to be a
military target.[324]Finally, the IDF acknowledges destroying
homes on a preventive, hypothetical basis during incursions.According to Major General Dan Harel, head of
the Southern Command, "20 structures were demolished around the uncovered
tunnels, this in order to prevent terrorists from opening fire and activating
explosive devices against the operating forces."[325]

These broad
criteria for house demolitions, undoubtedly shaped by the disturbingly
permissive interpretation of military necessity in the IDF military manual,
undermine two fundamental principles of IHL: distinction and proportionality.

The
principle of distinction is enshrined in the duty to "at all times distinguish
between civilian objects and military objectives" and to accordingly direct
"operations only against military objectives."[326]In a meeting with Human Rights Watch
researchers, Major Neuman said that the IDF only destroys civilian homes that
have become military objectives.To
stress the point, he read out loud Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I, which
stipulates that military objectives can include objects "which by their nature,
location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and
whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the
circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage."

The next
provision (Article 52(3)), however, makes clear that the mere potential for
military use does not eviscerate the protection enjoyed by a civilian object:
"In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian
purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is
being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be
presumed not to be so used."As a
result, it is unlawful to destroy a civilian object without sufficient evidence that it is being
put to military use or is about to be so used.The U.K.
military manual illustrates the rule with the following example: "If, for
example, it is suspected that a schoolhouse situated in a commanding tactical
position is being used by an adverse party as an observation post and gun
emplacement, this suspicion, unsupported by evidence, is not enough to justify
an attack on the schoolhouse."[327]Similarly, civilian objects used for military
purposes only lose their civilian status for as long as they make an effective
contribution to military action.

Even when a
clear military objective has been identified, an occupying power also "must try
to keep a sense of proportion in comparing the military advantages to be gained
with the damage done."[328]Proportionality dictates that the civilian
cost of a military action should not be excessive in relation to the concrete
and direct military advantage anticipated.The phrase "concrete and direct" appears several times in Additional
Protocol I and in various expressions of customary international law.The U.K. manual interprets the phrase
to mean that "the advantage to be gained is identifiable and quantifiable and
one that flows directly from the attack, not some pious hope that it might
improve the military situation in the long term."[329]An IDF legal advisor explained to Human
Rights Watch that the military assesses the proportionality of house
demolitions primarily by taking into account whether a building is
inhabited.This determination is often
made on the basis of intelligence reports or soldiers' observations of
inhabitation signs, such as internal lights or hanging laundry.[330]

Using the
category of "uninhabited" homes as the main yardstick of proportionality,
however, ignores the fact that IDF shelling or incursions are often the reason
for civilians to temporarily vacate their homes in the first place.The mere absence of people from a building at
a particular moment in time does not make it uninhabited, especially when the
residents have been compelled to flee by hostilities.Moreover, it is not enough simply to ensure
that civilians are not physically harmed; the principle of distinction also
applies to civilian objects,
including property.In particular, an
attacker should refrain from launching an attack if the expected cost,
including "damage to civilian objects would be excessive in relation to the
concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."[331]Protocol I, Article 57 ("Precautions in
attack") requires those who plan and/or execute an attack to cancel or desist
from the attack in such circumstances.In theory, an abandoned home has less value in a proportionality
analysis than an inhabited one.But the
IDF's assessment of proportionality must be considered in light of the
indiscriminate shooting that is a feature of daily life along the Rafah border.

"Extensive
destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity
and carried out unlawfully and wantonly" is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, or a war crime.[332]
As the first international judicial institution to try cases of destruction as
a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Tribunal
for ex-Yugoslavia (ICTY) has determined that such a crime has been committed
when property is destroyed extensively and without military necessity, and if
the perpetrator acted with the intent to destroy the property or in reckless
disregard of the likelihood of its destruction.[333]

Control of Property in Occupation: Security Measures
and Rights

While IHL
strictly regulates the destruction of all kinds of property, an Occupying Power
may take control of property under a number of different circumstances.Nevertheless, it is difficult to reconcile
the planned expansion of the buffer zone with any of them.

According to
Article 23(g) of the Hague Regulations, seizure of property is forbidden unless
"imperatively demanded by the necessities of war."As this provision is located in the section
of the Hague Regulations on hostilities (rather than occupation), it is
relevant only in the context of military operations and is also subject to the
recognized limitations on military necessity.

An Occupying
Power cannot confiscate private property.[334]It can requisition use of buildings for the
maintenance of the army of occupation, in proportion to the resources of the
territory.[335]It also acts as an administrator of public
buildings and lands, but cannot reduce their value.[336]As an administrator, an Occupying Power may
also expropriate property for public use as part of its obligation to maintain
civic life.[337]According to the U.S. army field manual, "an
occupant is authorized to expropriate either public or private property solely
for the benefit of the local population."[338]

The U.S.
and Canadian military manuals argue that an Occupying Power is also allowed to
control property "to the degree necessary to prevent its use for the benefit of
the enemy or in a manner harmful to the occupant.Property control is temporary in nature.The property must be returned to the owners
when the reason for the control no longer exists.Therefore, the control must not extend to
confiscation."[339]

The IDF
manual says that "Private property that does not belong to the state is immune
to seizure and conversion to booty.Nevertheless, a military commander is allowed to seize [sic] also
private property if this serves an important military need."[340]As with IDF doctrine on destruction, this
provision does not require that seizure be in conformity with IHL.None of the limitations and restrictions
associated with property control stipulated in the Hague Regulations such as
the requirement that seizure be "imperatively demanded by the necessities of
war" or that requisitions be in proportion to the resources of the territory
are mentioned.Nor does the manual
mention that control of private property for military use should be temporary.

Human Rights Law and Occupied Territories

Unlawful
house demolitions and expulsions also violate fundamental human rights norms
that continue to apply in situations of belligerent occupation.International human rights law seeks to
protect individuals from forced evictions and guarantees the right to adequate
housing even when they are lawfully removed.It also guarantees individuals the right to adequate remedies, which
should include access to impartial courts to seek compensation for destroyed
property or to challenge the legality of property seizures.Whether the IDF desires to expand the buffer
zone through incremental incursions or to widen it after going through the
Israeli Supreme Court, these fundamental rights should be respected and should
also inform policy.

While Israel
has ratified the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
and the International Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR), it denies their applicability to the OPT.Israel
has argued that these treaties apply only to Israel's sovereign territory, that
the establishment of the PNA should relieve it of its international
responsibilities under these covenants in the OPT, and that the existence of
hostilities in the OPT merits the application of IHL at the exclusion of human
rights norms.[341]The ICCPR, however, explicitly applies to
"all individuals within [a state's] territory and jurisdiction" (Article 2(1)),
which would include Palestinians in the OPT.U.N. treaty bodies have repeatedly affirmed Israel's responsibilities under
these human rights instruments in the OPT, as has the ICJ.[342]As the U.N. Human Rights Committee affirmed
in its most recent concluding observations on Israel:

The
Committee reiterates the view that the applicability of the regime of
international humanitarian law during an armed conflict does not preclude the
application of the Covenant The Committee therefore reiterates that, in the
current circumstances, the provisions of the Covenant apply to the benefit of
the population of the Occupied Territories, for all conduct by the State
party's authorities or agents in those territories that affect the enjoyment of
rights enshrined in the Covenant and fall within the ambit of State
responsibility of Israel under the principles of public international law.[343]

Similarly,
the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has repeatedly
stressed in relation to Israel and the OPT that "even in a situation of armed
conflict, fundamental human rights must be respected and that basic economic,
social and cultural rights, as part of the minimum standards of human rights,
are guaranteed under customary international law and are also prescribed by
international humanitarian law."[344]

IHL also
recognizes the continued relevance of human rights in belligerent
occupation.The Fourth Geneva Convention
balances the protections afforded to civilians against the right of the
Occupying Power to take security measures. "The various security measures which
States might take are not specified," notes the ICRC Commentary to the Fourth
Geneva Convention."What is essential is
that the measures of constraint they adopt should not affect the fundamental
rights of the persons concerned.As has
been seen, those rights must be respected even when measures of constraint are
justified."[345]

Forced Evictions and the Right to Adequate Housing

International
law seeks to protect people from forced eviction, which has been defined as
"the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families
and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision
of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection."[346]The U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1993
concluded that "forced evictions are a gross violation of human rights, in
particular the right to adequate housing."[347]

International
human rights bodies have sought to limit the scope for allowable forced
evictions as much as possible.The U.N.
Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights (CESCR) considers "that
instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements
of the [ICESCR] and can only be justified in the most exceptional
circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international
law."[348]

Forced
evictions occur in both peacetime and in the context of armed conflict.[349]States are prohibited from carrying out
forced evictions in all areas under their control, including those under
belligerent occupation.[350]

Forced
evictions and unlawful house demolitions also constitute a form of arbitrary
interference with the home, which is prohibited by Article 17 of ICCPR.It is important to note that even the removal
of people from their homes through a legal process can violate this rule:

In the
Committee's view the expression "arbitrary interference" can also extend to
interference provided for under the law. The introduction of the concept of
arbitrariness is intended to guarantee that even interference provided for by
law should be in accordance with the provisions, aims and objectives of the
Covenant and should be, in any event, reasonable in the particular
circumstances.[351]

Even in
situations where individuals may lawfully be removed from their homes, the
right to adequate housing, guaranteed by Article 11(1) of ICECR, remains.[352]Unlike many civil and political rights, it
cannot be derogated from in the name of national security.It can be subject "only to such limitations
as are determined by law only in so far as this may be compatible with the
nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general
welfare in a democratic society."[353]As the CESCR explains, "the right to housing
should not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it
with, for example, the shelter provided by merely having a roof over one's head
or views shelter exclusively as a commodity.Rather it should be seen as the right to live somewhere in security,
peace and dignity."[354]As the Occupying Power, even if Israel
enacts a legal process to remove Palestinians from their homes, it must ensure
that they are adequately housed.

Right to Effective Remedies

An Occupying
Power should make available effective remedies to those whose property has been
destroyed.It should also ensure that
property control measures do not amount to de facto confiscation by taking such
measures only in response to specific and well-defined threats, and allowing
owners to legally challenge decisions before impartial bodies on a regular
basis.

Article 2(3)
of ICCPR guarantees the right to "effective" remedies for those whose rights
have been violated.States are obligated
"To ensure that any person claiming such a remedy shall have his right thereto
determined by competent judicial, administrative or legislative authorities, or
by any other competent authority provided for by the legal system of the State,
and to develop the possibilities of judicial remedy."They must also "ensure that the competent
authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted."

In relation
to forced evictions, the CESCR has also stressed the importance of consultation
and access to legal remedies:

States
parties shall ensure, prior to carrying out any evictions, and particularly
those involving large groups, that all feasible alternatives are explored in
consultation with the affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimizing,
the need to use force.Legal remedies or
procedures should be provided to those who are affected by eviction
orders.States parties shall also see to
it that all the individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for
any property, both personal and real, which is affected.[355]

As noted
above, the existence of a belligerent occupation or even of armed conflict does
not automatically preempt the right to an effective remedy.It is noteworthy that even assigned residence
and internment, described in Article 78 as the Fourth Geneva Convention as the most severe security measures allowed to
an Occupying Power, require a number of procedural safeguards, most notably the
right to appeal.Appeals shall be
decided on with the least possible delay and assigned residence or internment
should be subject to review every six months if possible.[356]Furthermore, fifty-seven of the 159 articles
of the Convention (Arts. 79-135) are exclusively dedicated to regulating
various aspects of internment.The Commentary
on Article 78 notes that "such measures can only be ordered for real and
imperative reasons of security; their exceptional character must be preserved."[357]

Israeli Jurisprudence and Law

For decades,
Israel's
judiciary has effectively sanctioned unlawful property destruction and forced
evictions by the IDF.This does not bode
well for the prospects of a plan to legalize the destruction of homes in order
to widen the Philadelphi corridor.Simply destroying homes and handing out compensation, as has been
discussed in the Israeli media, is not enough; residents must be able to mount
legal challenges to expropriation with full human rights guarantees.

Exceptions Over the Rule: Israeli Courts and
Destruction of Property

For decades,
the Israeli Supreme Court has heard petitions related to property destruction,
mostly in the context of urgent petitions filed regarding punitive
demolitions.The Court has consistently
legitimized house demolitions[358]
while developing a limited and deeply flawed jurisprudence regarding the right
of owners to be heard in advance of demolitions.

The Israeli
Supreme Court has in recent years expanded the scope of the IDF's discretion to
dispense with the right to a hearing.For years, demolitions could go ahead without a hearing if imperative
military reasons, usually linked to combat, allowed.During the current uprising, other exceptions
were added.The 2002 'Amer case represents the latest
evolution in the Court's jurisprudence on the right of an owner to be heard in
advance of demolitions.The Court ruled
that the right could be revoked in three instances:

If destruction is absolutely
necessary for military operations;

If providing advance notice
would endanger the lives of soldiers;

If providing advance notice
would endanger the success of the demolition.[359]

The
cumulative effect of the "three exceptions" rule is to give the IDF discretion
to circumvent the already limited role of the Court and to avoid having to
justify demolitions in the first place.The first "exception" conforms to the general rule for destruction under
IHL.The second "exception" has been
proposed by the IDF on the basis that giving advance notice can entail
significant risks to troops, for example by allowing the homes in question to
be booby-trapped with explosives or giving fighters an opportunity to set up
ambushes.While this may be possible in
some cases, the court's jurisprudence is vague about the level and nature of
the risks required to render such destruction "absolutely necessary" for military
operations.The third exception is so
vague that it allows for demolitions without due process on almost any basis.

Even if none
of the three exceptions apply, the "right to be heard" granted by the Court is
not an adequate remedy.There are no clear
guidelines for the appeal process, and the Court invariably defers to the IDF's
invocation of "military necessity."Even
when faced with expert opinions on the military necessity or efficacy of
proposed actions, the Court as a rule sides with the IDF without assessing the
merits of competing arguments.As the
Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 1979 and reaffirmed as recently as June 2004:

In
security issues, where the petitioner relies on the opinion of an expert in
security affairs, and the respondent relies on the opinion of a person who is
both an expert and also responsible for the security of the state, it is
natural that we will grant special weight to the opinion of the latter.[360]

According to
human rights lawyers who litigate house demolition cases, appeals to the Court
at best elicit temporary injunctions that give residents several hours or days
to evacuate their belongings.Occasionally, the IDF announces that it has no intention of demolishing
the homes in question for the time being, leaving residents in fear that the
threat of demolition could reemerge later.In conceding that it has the luxury to carry out some demolitions later
on at its convenience, the IDF undermines any argument for the "absolute"
necessity of such destruction.[361]

The jurisprudence
of the "three-exception" rule was mostly developed in the case of punitive
house demolitions, i.e. in cases where the IDF did not claim any security or
military threat from the houses themselves.In cases such as in Rafah, where the IDF claims that houses are actually
military objectives, there is virtually no space for appeals.Israeli State Attorney Aner Hellman has
essentially argued that at least one of the three exceptions exists at nearly
all times in Rafah: "In 99 percent of the cases in the Rafah area, which is
different from the West Bank or elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, the moment we
announce our intention of razing a home, the Palestinians immediately set
booby-traps there."[362]As one Israeli commentator noted, the
Court effectively "hear[s] petitions by Palestinian residents calling for the
right of appeal, and hand[s] down decisions which seem to offer a certain
degree of hope even though both sides, the court and the petitioners, know the
hope is hollow."[363]

The vast
permissiveness that the "three exceptions" rule permits the IDF in property
destruction has prompted a change in litigation tactics by local human rights
organizations.In May, three groups
Adalah, al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) jointly
filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court asking it to define the scope of
"military necessity" regarding property destruction under IHL.The human rights groups argued that "The
Supreme Court's failure, to date, to precisely define the limitations of 'military
necessity' has contributed to the Israeli army's implementation of a policy of
extensive home demolitions throughout the 1967 Occupied Territories, exploiting
the pretext of this exception as justification for its actions."[364]As of September 2004, the Court had not
responded on whether it will hear the petition.

Pending a
decision on the petition, the three groups filed a motion to the Court on June
30 for an injunction to prevent the demolition of the homes of ten families in
various high-risk neighborhoods of Rafah.On July 21, Judge Mishael Cheshin issued an order forbidding the
destruction of the ten homes mentioned in the motion, but the Court canceled
the order several hours later.The
reversal came after the Attorney General argued that the military could not
locate the ten houses in question and that military operations in southern
Rafah are continuing in which soldiers' lives are at risk.Furthermore, the State Attorney assured the
Court that the houses will not be demolished without a hearing subject, of
course, to the "three exceptions" rule.[365]

Reparations

Under IHL,
reparation is required for violations, though not for damage that is incidental
to lawful military acts.Israeli law,
however, makes obtaining compensation for IDF abuses, including unlawful
property destruction, almost impossible.[366]In July 2002, the Knesset amended the law on
claims related to IDF activities in the OPT, sharply curtailing the already
limited ability of civilians to obtain compensation for damage or injury caused
by negligent or unlawful acts of Israeli forces.[367]

Under the
previous law, the state was exempt from any liability in connection with
"wartime action."The 2002 amendment
expanded the definition of "wartime action" from actual hostilities to include
virtually all IDF activities in the OPT, including those not related to combat,
such as patrols, operating checkpoints, searches and arrests, and dealing with
demonstrations.The law also places the
burden of proof on the plaintiff and drastically reduces the time period in
which cases can be brought.[368]According to a coalition of Israeli human
rights groups, the amendment "renders worthless the rules of Israeli law and
international law that are intended to limit the use of force. Violation of
the law would bear no consequences, and enforcement of the law would be subject
solely to the good will of the soldiers."[369]

IX. Appendix: Statements by International Community
Condemning Destruction in Rafah

"The
Secretary-General strongly condemns Israel's ongoing and widespread
destruction of Palestinian homes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Reports
cite the demolition of scores of buildings over the last two days, in addition
to 130 residential buildings already destroyed this month. The Secretary-General
has repeatedly called on the Government of Israel to address its security needs
within the boundaries of international law. He urges Israel to uphold its obligations as
an occupying Power by immediately halting such actions, which are tantamount to
collective punishment and a clear violation of international law."

May 14, 2004, Spokesman for U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan

"We are
extremely alarmed that even more demolitions are planned. Already huge swathes
of Rafah have been flattened, to the extent that some families have experienced
the trauma of demolition more than once. With these disproportionate military
operations, Israel
is in grave breach of international humanitarian law. This collective
punishment can do nothing to calm the situation in Gaza
or enhance Israel's
own security."

May 15, 2004, Peter Hansen, UNRWA
Commissioner-General

"The
Secretary-General reiterates his condemnation of Israel's widespread destruction of
Palestinian homes in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Recent reports from UN agencies
assert that some 2,197 people have lost their homes in the first 15 days of
May. In addition, there are reports of Israeli military plans for a more
extensive round of house demolitions in Gaza.
He repeats his call on the Government of Israel to fulfil its obligations under
international law as it acts to ensure its security. As the occupying Power, it
must cease such acts of collective punishment immediately, and refrain from
further grave violations of international law."

May 17, 2004, Spokesman for U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan

"We
understand Israel's
need to defend itself from attacks, but as a matter of policy we oppose the use
of home demolitions to achieve this end and we are concerned about the
humanitarian consequences of such demolitions."

May 17, 2004, Spokesman for the American Embassy
in Israel

"We, the
undersigned international humanitarian organizations, find this situation
unacceptable. We are appalled by Israeli Government plans to continue
demolitions on this large scale and 'create a new reality on the border between
Egypt and Gaza' as stated by Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Defense Minister on May
16th 2004 in a cabinet meeting."

May 18, 2004, Association of International
Development Agencies (AIDA)

"It is clear
that today's action was completely disproportionate to any threat faced by the
Israeli military and that Israeli forces showed a reckless disregard for human
life.I would once again remind Israel,
the occupying power, that the fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection
of Civilian Persons in Time of War is fully applicable to the Gaza Strip."

May 19, 2004, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Mr. Brian Cowen T.D., speaking as President of the Council of the European
Union

"These
actions constitute a violation of international humanitarian law and constitute
war crimes under Article 147 of the Geneva Convention relative to the
Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949 (Fourth Geneva
Convention).They also amount to
collective punishment which violates both humanitarian law and international
human rights law.It is impossible to
accept the Israeli argument that these actions are justified by military
necessity.On the contrary, in the
language of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they are "carried
out unlawfully and wantonly."

May 19,
2004, John Dugard, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the
situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since
1967

"UNRWA calls
on the IDF to halt its demolition of houses immediately and discontinue the
humanitarian tragedy it is wreaking on the largely civilian population of
Rafah.UNRWA fully recognizes the right
of the State of Israel to defend itself and its people. The military actions of
the last few days are in violation of Israel's
obligations under international law and will do nothing to safeguard Israel's
security or facilitate the resumption of serious attempts to find a solution to
the conflict."

May 20, 2004, UNRWA statement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report
was researched and written by Fred Abrahams,
senior researcher with Human Rights Watch; Marc
Garlasco, Senior Military Analyst in the Arms Division; and
Darryl Li, Finberg Fellow.It was edited
by Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of the Middle
East and North Africa Division and Widney
Brown, Deputy Program Director.The report was reviewed by Wilder Tayler,
Legal and Policy Director, and by Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human
Rights Watch.Parts of this report were
also reviewed by Steve Goose,
Director of the Arms Division and Arvind Ganesan, Director of the Business
& Human Rights Program.Leila Hull,
Associate in the Middle East and North Africa
Division, provided invaluable research and production assistance.InternsMarie Yared and Alicyn Cooley in the Middle East and North Africa Division
and Sarah Davis and Javier Stark in the Arms Division provided research
assistance.Eitan Buchwall, intern in
the Middle East and North Africa Division,
helped prepare the production and release of the report.Thanks also to Corinne Carey, Researcher in
the U.S. Program, for legal advice.Satellite imagery was generously provided by Space Imaging North America,
Space Imaging Eurasia, Space Imaging Middle East, and Digital Globe.Matthew McKinzie, produced the maps,
photographs were taken by Marc Garlasco
and Fred Abrahams.

Human Rights
Watch thanks two groups of people for their invaluable help.First, the, victims and witnesses who gave
testimony that form the report's core.Second,
the human rights organizations in Israel and the Occupied Territories working
on house demolitions and property destruction, including Adalah, B'tselem,
HaMoked, al-Haq, al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights.Particular thanks go
to Mohamed Abdallah, Abd al-Halim Abu Samra, Yusuf Ibrahim, and Jaber
Wishah.Adwan Adwan and Mohammed Asfour
were excellent translators and guides.

At the
United Nations, both UNRWA and OCHA provided very useful assistance.Special thanks to Christer Nordahl and Maher
Nasser of UNRWA for providing statistical and cartographic data.Human Rights Watch is also grateful for the
cooperation it received from the Israeli government, including Orli Gil at the
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maj. Noam Neuman of the IDF legal
adviser's office, Maj. Assaf Librati of the Southern Command, and Maj. Sharon
Feingold and Maj. Sam Wiedermann of the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.

[1]
Voice of Israel Radio, January
16, 2002, cited in B'tselem, Policy
of Destruction: House Demolitions and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the
Gaza Strip, February 2002.

[3]
Unless otherwise stated, statistics for homes demolished and persons rendered
homeless were provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) based mostly on assessments by its
social workers.UNRWA classifies damage
in three categories: total destruction, partial destruction (rendered
uninhabitable, in need of reconstruction), and damage (habitable, in need of
repair).References to homes
"demolished" or "destroyed" in this report refer to all those rendered
uninhabitable, i.e. the first two categories, unless otherwise stated.UNRWA statistics also include data on the
demolition of non-refugee homes.

[4]
UNRWA's operational definition of "refugee" includes descendents of those who
fled or were expelled from what became Israel
("Who is a Palestine
refugee?" UNRWA website, available at http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html,
accessed September 24, 2004).

[5]
Human Rights Watch has extensively documented this practice in recent
years.See In a Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians During IDF Arrest Operations
(Human Rights Watch, April 2002).

[8]
Figures on Israeli fatalities are drawn from the website of the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, www.mfa.gov.il.
(accessed October 4, 2004) In response to an inquiry from Human Rights Watch,
the IDF did not disclose figures on injuries in Rafah.

[9]
While major militaries affirm the right of an occupying power to temporarily control
property for security purposes, confiscation (permanent seizure and transfer of
ownership) is prohibited by Article 46 of the Hague Regulations.

[10]
Avihai Becker, "The Black List of Captain Kaplan," Ha'aretz, April
27, 2001, cited in B'tselem, Policy
of Destruction: House Demolitions and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the
Gaza Strip, February 2002, p. 34.

[11]
Because in this investigation HRW focused on the pattern of property
destruction, figures on deaths were compiled from an analysis of reporting by
local human rights organizations, media accounts, and statements by Palestinian
armed groups, supplemented in some cases by Human Rights Watch's own
documentation.

[13]
ICRC, Commentary to the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed
Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, p. 67.See virtually identical language in "Interpretation by the ICRC of
Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, with particular
reference to the expression 'military operations,'" Letter to al-Haq signed by
Jacques Moreillon, Director of Department of Principles and Law and Jean
Pictet, ICRC, November 25, 1981 (" with a view to fighting") and "Occupation
and international humanitarian law: questions and answers," ICRC press release,
August 4, 2004 ("when
absolutely required by military necessity during the conduct of hostilities").

[15]
"Transcript of GOC Southern Command Regarding the Findings of the Investigation
of the Demolition of the Buildings in Rafah (10-11.01.02)," IDF Spokesperson's
Unit, January 27, 2002.

[16]Sharon wrote in his memoirs that "it was essential to create a Jewish buffer zone
between Gaza and the Sinai [then under Israeli
control] to cut off the flow of smuggled weapons and looking forward to a
future settlement with Egypt
to divide the two regions" (Warrior:
The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001),
p. 258).

[18]
See, inter alia, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of Land Warfare (Department
of the Army, July 1956), p. 4; The Manual
of the Law of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), pp. 21-23; The Law of Armed
Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level (Office of the Judge
Advocate General, Canadian military, September 2001), section 2-1.

[19]U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of
Land Warfare, pp. 23-24; The Law of
Armed Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level, section 12-9.

[21]
Guy Zadkham, "Zadka under fire," B'Mahanah
[IDF magazine], December
28, 2001, cited in B'tselem, Policy
of Destruction: House Demolitions and Destruction of AgriculturalLand in the Gaza Strip, p. 29.

[22]
See, inter alia, periodic reports on
land leveling in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights,
available at www.pchrgaza.org and B'tselem, Policy of Destruction: House Demolitions and
Destruction of Agricultural Land in the Gaza Strip, February 2002.

[24]
On punitive demolitions, see, inter alia,
al-Haq, Israel's Punitive House
Demolition Policy: Collective Punishment in Violation ofInternational Law, 2003; al-Haq, A Thousand and One Homes: Israel's
Demolition and Sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,
1993; and B'tselem, Demolition and
sealing of homes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a Punitive Measure
During the Intifada, 1989.On
administrative demolitions in East Jerusalem, see B'tselem, A Policy of Discrimination: Land
Expropriation, Planning and Building in East Jerusalem,
1995.

[27]
See, inter alia, International
Court of Justice, "Advisory opinion on Legal Consequences of the Construction
of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," July 9, 2004 and "Israel's 'Separation Barrier' in
the Occupied West Bank: Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law
Consequences," Human Rights Watch, February 2004.

[28]
See, inter alia, "Israel's
'separation barrier' in the occupied West Bank: Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law consequences" (Human Rights Watch, February 2004), Jenin: IDF Military Operations (Human
Rights Watch, May 2002), In a Dark Hour:
The Use of Civilians During IDF Arrest Operations (Human Rights Watch,
April 2002), Center of the Storm: A Case
Study of Human Rights Abuses in Hebron District (Human Rights Watch, April
2001).

[30]
These arguments are reviewed in, inter
alia, Center of the Storm: A Case
Study of Human Rights Abuses in Hebron District (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 2001)
and Israel's Closure of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip (New York: Human Rights Watch, July 1996).Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz
recently recommended that the government "thoroughly examine" the possibility
of formally applying the Convention to the OPT.The recommendation was made after examining the legal consequence of the
International Court of Justice's July 9 advisory opinion, which found that the
parts of Israel's "separation barrier" built inside the West Bank violate
international law and should be dismantled (Aluf Benn, "AG: ICJ Ruling Necessitates
Adoption of Geneva Convention," Ha'aretz,
August 25, 2004).The government has not
indicated whether it will reverse its longstanding policy on the Convention's
applicability in the OPT.

[32]
Jean S. Pictet, ed., Commentary on the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: IV
Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
(International Committee of the Red Cross: Geneva, 1958), commentary on Art.
49(6) of Fourth Geneva Convention, p. 282.

[34]
Settlement population as of December
31, 2003.See Israeli Central Bureau of
Statistics, "Population in Urban Localities and Other Geographic Divisions,
Provisional Data as of December
30, 2003," March 2004.Available
at http://www.cbs.gov.il/population/popul_eng.htm,
as of July 27, 2004.Actual settlements populations are believed
to be lower.

[35]
See Human Rights Watch, Israel's Closure
of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, July 1996.

[63]
The housing projects were divided into parcels of land with ninety-nine-year
leases.Families accepting them would
have to renounce all claims to refugee status, cover construction and
infrastructure costs themselves, and demolish their camp shelters (whose land
would then be taken over by the IDF, exacerbating the housing crisis).The additional restrictions on land use in
the projects and lack of government investment meant that qualify of life in
the projects was not appreciably better than in the camps."In summary, the government resettlement
program was not a genuine effort to provide housing but rather a political
attempt to eradicate the refugee presence and the political responsibilities it
carried" (Sara Roy, The Gaza Strip: The
Political Economy of De-Development (Washington: Institute for Palestine
Studies, 1995), p. 188; see also Simcha Bahiri, Construction and Housing in the West Bank and Gaza (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1989), p. 32).

[64]
For stories on the plight of the residents of Canada, see Dick Doughty and
Mohammed El Aydi, Gaza: A Legacy of Occupation: A Photographer's Journey
(West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1995).

[68]
Benny Morris, The Birth of the
Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), p. 505.The policy and practice of expulsions in the
northern area are documented on subsequent pages.Morris supports the expulsions policies he
has documented.In an interview with Ha'aretz,
he proclaimed, "There is no justification for acts of rape.There is no justification for acts of
massacre.Those are war crimes.But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a
war crime.I don't think that the
expulsions of 1948 were war crimes.You
can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.You have to dirty your hands." (Ari Shavit, "Survival of the Fittest," Ha'aretz,
January 9, 2004).

[93]
This price roughly matches the figure of 25-29 shekels given by a smuggler to
the newspaper Ha'aretz in May.See Amira Hass, "Philadelphi Smuggler: It's
Harder Now to Get Through," Ha'aretz, May 25, 2004.

[101]
In addition to the reporting of Amira Hass in Ha'aretz cited in this report, a number of foreign journalists have
written about the tunnels, based upon conversations with Rafah residents and
the IDF.See, inter alia, Mitch Potter, "In Gaza, the Tunnels Lead to Death," Toronto Star, February 29, 2004; Conal
Urquhart, "Palestinians tunnel to freedom," Guardian,
November 2, 2003 (featuring an interview with an alleged tunnel-digger);
Cameron Barr, "Life and Death Amid the Ruins of Rafah," Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2003.

[120]
Arieh O'Sullivan, "IDF Gets New Tunnel-Busting Unit," Jerusalem Post, June 4, 2004.The size of the unit and its date of
formation were roughly corroborated by an Israeli journalist who followed
dozens of tunnel-hunting missions in Rafah (Human Rights Watch interview with
Nadav Neuhaus, Jerusalem,
July 3, 2004).

[123]
Curiously, the list described some of the tunnels as being nine and ten meters
wide, respectively.When asked to
confirm these figures, a soldier from the IDF Spokesperson's Unit insisted that
the figures were correct.In a
subsequent interview with Human Rights Watch, however, Maj. Librati insisted
that they could not be accurate.Human
Rights Watch asked for further clarification from the IDF and was told that the
dimensions reflected the width of the tunnels after being destroyed by the IDF
(Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Major Sam Wiedermann, Head of
International Organizations Desk, IDF Spokesperson's Unit, August 26, 2004).

[132]
Human Rights Watch interview with Taleb Abu Sharikh, Rafah, July 14, 2004.The tunnel in the Abu Na'ama house was also
reported in Cameron Barr, "Life and Death Amid the Ruins of Rafah," Christian Science Monitor, October 29,
2003.

[135]
Human Rights Watch interview with Mansour Abu Mu'amer, Rafah, July 14, 2004;
the tunnel closure was also confirmed by Taleb Abu Sharikh and mentioned in
Amira Hass, "The Ridiculous Flyer," Ha'aretz,
June 10, 2004.Human Rights Watch also
spoke to another neighbor, Yusuf Namla, who saw the PNA police come to the
Babli house to close the tunnel, though he did not see the closure himself
(Human Rights Watch interview with Yusuf Namla, aged twenty-six, July 15,
2004).

[146]
Commercial satellite imagery of Israel/OPT
is subject to special restrictions under U.S. law.While U.S.
companies routinely provide satellite imagery of other countries at one-meter
resolution or higher levels of quality, Israel/OPT imagery is released only
at inferior two-meter resolution, in accordance with the Kyl-Bingaman amendment
to the 1997 U.S. Defense Authorization Act.

[147]
While major militaries affirm the right of an occupying power to temporarily control
property for security purposes, confiscation (permanent seizure and transfer of
ownership) is prohibited by Article 46 of the Hague Regulations.

[149]
Statistics compiled by PCHR.UNRWA has
monthly disaggregations for house demolitions only from December 2002 onwards,
from which point the monthly patterns (and overall Intifada data) closely
match, though UNRWA counts significantly more demolitions in October 2003.Pre-December 2002 aggregates are also largely
consistent.

[151]
First Additional Protocol to the Geneva
Conventions, Art. 52.Israel has not ratified the
Additional Protocols but its provisions on indiscriminate warfare are widely
considered customary norms of international law, binding on all parties to a
conflict.The U.S. government, which has also not
ratified the Protocols, stated in 1987 that it finds a number of Protocol I's
provisions to be customary.Among them
are: limitations on the means and methods of warfare, especially those methods
which cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering (art. 35); protection
of the civilian population and individual citizens, as such, from being the
object of acts or threats of violence, and from attacks that would clearly
result in civilian casualties disproportionate to the expected military
advantage (art. 51); protection of civilians from use as human shields (arts.
51 and 52); prohibition of the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
and allowing the delivery of impartial humanitarian aid necessary for the
survival of the civilian population (arts. 54 and 70); taking into account
military and humanitarian considerations in conducting military operations in
order to minimize incidental death, injury, and damage to civilians and
civilian objects, and providing advance warning to civilians unless
circumstances do not permit (arts. 57-60).Michael J. Matheson, Remarks on the United States Position on the
Relation of Customary International Law to the 1977 Protocols Additional to the
1949 Geneva Conventions, reprinted in "The Sixth Annual American Red-Cross
Washington College of Law Conference on International Humanitarian Law: A
Workshop on Customary International Law and the 1977 Protocols Additional to
the 1949 Geneva Conventions," American
University Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 2, no. 2, Fall
1987, pp. 419-27.

[152]
"The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come
within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its
civilian character" (First Additional Protocol, Art. 50(3)).

[153]
"Transcript of GOC Southern Command Regarding the Findings of the Investigation
of the Demolition of the Buildings in Rafah (10-11.01.02)," IDF Spokesperson's
Unit, January 27, 2002.Almog declined an interview request from
Human Rights Watch.

[167]Tsadok Yehezkeli, "Regards from Hell," Yediot Ahronoth, June 11, 2004 (Hebrew).Colonel Zuaretz was wounded and lost a
foot in a roadside bomb attack near Morag settlement, between Rafah and Khan
Yunis, on July 8.Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility.

[169]
This was also the impression of the journalist who interviewed Rynski (Human
Rights Watch telephone interview with Mark Heinrich, Reuters, September 21, 2004).In response to an inquiry from Human Rights
Watch to clarify the remark, the IDF said that "The plan has not yet been finalized,
nor approved. Therefore, it [sic] will be premature and inappropriate to go
into detail at this [sic] piont" (Human Rights Watch email communication with
IDF Spokesperson's Unit, September
23, 2004).

[179]
As mentioned in the summary of this report, Human Rights Watch's investigation
was focused on the pattern of property destruction rather than deaths.Figures on deaths were compiled from an
analysis of reporting by local human rights organizations, media accounts, and
statements by Palestinian armed groups, supplemented in some cases by Human
Rights Watch's own documentation.

[180]
The IDF destroyed 429 houses throughout the entire Gaza Strip in May, as well
as numerous factories, shops, and fields.Statistics from UNRWA.

[181]
This figure conflicts with a list of tunnel discoveries provided by the IDF to
Human Rights Watch on July
20, 2004, which lists only two tunnels discovered during this
period (on May 22 and May 23).

[184]
"A hospital in Rafah said five of those killed were militants, but the seven
others were civilians who had been in the crowds with the militants" ("Twelve
dead as Gaza
violence continues to escalate," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, May 13, 2004).The Popular Resistance Committees were also
quoted as saying that one of their fighters was killed by Israeli troops near
Rafiah Yam settlement, nearly one kilometer away from Block O (Adel Zaanoun,
"Israel to demolish Rafah homes, PA and UN warn of humanitarian catastrophe," Agence
France Presse, May 14, 2004).

[186]
As mentioned in chapter 2, the demolitions were carried out throughout the
month of August 1971 and were not connected to combat.As Sharon
recalls in his memoirs, "These crowded alleys provided ideal ground for the
terrorists, and now I widened some of them so that we could patrol more
efficiently" (Sharon and Charnoff, Warrior:
The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon, p. 258).

[187]
The design of housing projects in order to accommodate maneuverability of
military vehicles in the OPT has continued.UNRWA is constructing more than four hundred shelters in Jenin refugee
camp to replace those destroyed by the IDF in April 2002.The project, funded by a U.S.$ 27 million
grant from the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Society, reportedly takes
fifteen percent of the original area of each destroyed house in order to widen
the roads to facilitate the movement of tanks and other heavy vehicles (Gideon
Levy, "Tank Lanes Built Between New Jenin Homes," Ha'aretz, June
10, 2004).IDF troops have
forcibly entered the reconstruction project's Jenin office twice, most recently
on May 20, when local and international staff were handcuffed, blindfolded, and
threatened for over three hours by IDF troops.The IDF apologized to UNRWA for both incidents ("UNRWA Protests Israeli
incursion into Jenin Camp Reconstruction Project Office and Detention of Senior
Project Manager," UNRWA press release, May 23, 2004).

[191]
"UN SG 'strongly condemns' Israel's ongoing, widespread destruction of
Palestinian homes in Gaza,"
SG/SM/9307, May 14, 2004.Annan repeated his call for an end to
demolitions on May 17 ("Annan calls on Israel
to halt destruction of Palestinian homes in Gaza," UN News, May 17, 2004).

[222]
Human Rights Watch saw both these large tracts of land but the precise figure
of 298 donums comes from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Weekly Report No 20/2004, 20-26 May,
2004.

[223]
The death of the boy getting water, Sabir Abu Libda, is documented in this
report.For information on the two
siblings shot while feeding pigeons on the roof, Asma and Ahmed Mughayar, see
Chris McGreal, "Palestinian Doctors Despair at Rising Toll of Children Shot
Dead by Army Snipers," Guardian, May 20, 2004; Donald Macintyre, "A
Brother, a Sister and a Morgue too Full for Them Both," Independent, May
20, 2004; James Bennet, "Children Fill Ledger of Death, No Matter How, Or How
Many," New York Times, May 21, 2004; and "Killing of Children Must be
Investigated," Amnesty International press release, May 25, 2004.The IDF originally claimed that the Mughayer
siblings were killed by a Palestinian bomb, only to later retract the
statement.

[259]
Human Rights Watch interview with Subhi Abu Ghali, aged forty-two, Rafah, July 22, 2004.Abu Ghali's account was also recorded in
Chris McGreal, "'They have no humanity. They didn't even give us two minutes to
get out,'" Guardian, June 4, 2004.

[274]The prohibition does not apply
if such objects are used solely as sustenance for enemy armed forces or if they
are being used to directly support military action, though "in no event shall
actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the
civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its
starvation or force its movement" (Protocol I, Art. 54(3))."As regards the objects which are especially
protected, the Conference mentioned agricultural areas for the production of
foodstuffs, drinking water installations and supplies, and crops, which should
be interpreted in the widest sense, in order to cover the infinite variety of
needs of populations in all geographical areas" (ICRC, Commentary to Protocol
I, p. 655).

[275]
Letter from Major Sam Wiedermann, Head of International Organizations Desk, IDF
Spokesperson's Unit, to Human Rights Watch, August 22, 2004.

[281]
On April 10, 2002,
the European Parliament passed a resolution calling upon the European Council
to institute an arms embargo on Israel/OPT
and to suspend the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement.

[282]Overall disbursements
fell from U.S.$ 1.026 billion in 2002 to U.S. $898 million in 2003 a decline
of twelve percent. However, if the Arab
League donors are discounted, contributions from others (principally the
U.S.
and the E.U.) increased by about thirty percent. The same is true for types of assistance other
than budget support; these increased by over twenty percent (World Bank,
Disengagement, the Palestinian Economy, and the Settlements).

[283]
World Bank, World Bank Report on
Impact of Intifada, April-June 2003.

[284]
House of Commons, International Development Committee, Development Assistance and the Occupied PalestinianTerritories,
January 15, 2004.

[304]
Human Rights Watch has previously encountered similar attempts by the IDF to
obfuscate its legal obligations by attempting to create or exploit ambiguities
in the law or gaps between legal regimes.See Human Rights Watch, Center of
the Storm: A Case Study of Human Rights Abuses in Hebron District, April
2001.

[306]
ICRC, Commentary to the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed
Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, p. 67.Virtually identical language (" with a view to fighting") is used in
"Interpretation by the ICRC of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12
August 1949, with particular reference to the expression 'military
operations,'" Letter to al-Haq signed by Jacques Moreillon, Director of
Department of Principles and Law and Jean Pictet, ICRC, November 25, 1981.

[307] The Convention "makes a
clear distinction between military operations, requirements, or considerations
and requirements or considerations of security" (emphasis in original), David
Kretzmer, The Occupation of Justice: The
Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 2002), p. 148.

[312]
"Transcript of GOC Southern Command Regarding the Findings of the Investigation
of the Demolition of the Buildings in Rafah (10-11.01.02)," IDF Spokesperson's
Unit, January 27, 2002.

[313]
Avihai Becker, "The Black List of Captain Kaplan," Ha'aretz, April
27, 2001, cited in B'tselem, Policy
of Destruction: House Demolitions and Destruction of Agricultural Land in the
Gaza Strip, February 2002, p. 34.

[315]
"Interpretation by the ICRC of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12
August 1949, with particular reference to the expression 'military
operations,'" Letter to al-Haq signed by Jacques Moreillon, Director of
Department of Principles and Law and Jean Pictet, ICRC, November 25, 1981.

[316]The Law of Armed Conflict at the
Operational and Tactical Level (Office of the Judge Advocate General,
Canadian military, September 2001), section 12-9.

[317]U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of Land Warfare (Department of
the Army, July 1956), pp. 23-24.

[318]
U.K. Ministry of Defence, The Manual of
the Law of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford:
OxfordUniversity Press, 2004), p. 88.

[320]
ICRC, Commentary on Protocol I, p. 393, paraphrasing Francis Lieber,
Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber
Code), 1863, Art. 14.

[321]
See, inter alia, U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10: The Law of Land
Warfare, p. 4; The Manual of the Law
of the Law of Armed Conflict, pp. 21-23; The Law of Armed Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level,
section 2-1.

[326]
Protocol I, Art. 48.While Israel
has not ratified Protocol I, the provisions on indiscriminate warfare are
considered to be a codification of customary rules of international law."The basic rule of protection and distinction
is confirmed in this article.It is the
foundation on which the codification of the laws and customs of war rests"
(Commentary on Protocol I, p. 598).

[327]
U.K. Ministry of Defence, The Manual of
the Law of the Law of Armed Conflict, p. 55.

[341]
See, inter alia, Second period report
of Israel
to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/ISR/2001/2, December 4, 2001, para. 8; Second
periodic report of Israel to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, E/1990/6/Add.32, October 16, 2001, paras. 5-7.

[342]
See, inter alia, "Concluding
observations of the Human Rights Committee: Israel," CCPR/CO/78/ISR, August 21, 2003, para. 11;
"Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights: Israel,"
E/C.12/1/Add.90, May 23,
2003, para. 15; ICJ advisory opinion on Legal Consequences of the
Construction of a Wall in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory,
July 9, 2004,
paras. 111-112.

[344]
U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, "Concluding
Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Israel,"
E/C.12/1/Add.90, May 23,
2003.Similar language can
be found in previous Concluding Observations on Israel: E/C.12/1/Add.69, August 31, 2001, para. 12.

E/C.12/1/Add.90. (Concluding Observations/Comments)

[345]
Commentary to the Art 27(4) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, p. 207.

[350]
This point is stressed in the Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, a nonbinding elaboration of international law
completed by a group of independent experts in 1997: "The dominating or
occupying power bears responsibility for violations of economic, social and
cultural rights" (Art. 17).This is
especially pertinent when the violation takes place through an act of
commission rather than the failure to realize a standard of living.

[351]
U.N. Human Rights Committee, "General Comment No. 16: The right to respect of
privacy, family, home and correspondence, and protection of honour and
reputation (Art. 17)," April
8, 1988, para. 4.

[358]
For an overview of the Court's jurisprudence on the legality of demolitions,
see, inter alia, Yoram Dinstein, "The
Israel Supreme Court and the Law of Belligerent Occupation: Demolitions and
Sealing Off of Houses," Israel Yearbook
on Human Rights, Vol. 29 (2000).

[359]'Amer v. Commander of Israel Defense Forces in the West
Bank, HCJ 6696/02, August 6, 2002.

[364]
"Adalah the PCHR and Al-Haq Ask the Supreme Court to Define the Legal Scope of
the 'Military Necessity' Exception, and Issue an Injunction Against the Israeli
Army's Home Demolitions Policy, which Violates this Exception," Adalah press
release, May 27, 2004.The petition is
available in Hebrew at http://www.adalah.org/features/rafah/petition.pdf
(accessed October 4, 2004).

[365]
"Within a Matter of Hours: Israeli Supreme Court Revokes a Prohibition Order
Preventing the Israeli Military from Demolishing Ten Buildings in Southern
Rafah Requested by Adalah," Adalah press release, July 22, 2004.

[366]
The Supreme Court has noted that the IDF should compensate owners of land
seized for the construction of the separation barrier inside the West Bank.See, inter alia, BeitSourikVillage Council v. The Government of Israel,
para. 8.